


Party Like Your Heart Hurts

by spaceOdementia



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe, Attempt at Humor, Cloud is going to sing in the shower, Cloud is overprotective AF, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Growth from adversity, Humor, Light-Hearted, Minimal bouts of intoxication, Mostly inspired to complete this because of Andrea Rhodea and Cloud dancing, Mutual Pining, Romance, SMUTTY SMUT, SO MUCH HAPPINESS, Sexual Tension, This is ridiculous but was very fun, Tifa coping from a breakup, Tifa is a BAMF, Very minimal angst, Wholly inspired by the FFVII remake, coming to terms, emotional development, eventual emotional smut, going to the club, happiness, humor?, shameless flirting, title from a song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:21:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 45,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23814520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceOdementia/pseuds/spaceOdementia
Summary: When Tifa struggles to bounce back from a breakup, she learns that alcohol and dancing and reckless behavior can, actually, help someone come to terms.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Zack Fair, Previous Tifa Lockhart/Rude, Tifa Lockhart & Aerith Gainsborogh & Yuffie Kisaragi Friendship, Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife, Yuffie Kisaragi/Vincent Valentine
Comments: 212
Kudos: 479





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I began this like eight years ago and finally finished it because, as I'm now obsessed with final fantasy 7 again, I was going through all of my old stories. I had so many of them I either never finished, gave up on, or had a plot that was too out of my depth and scope of imagination and writing capabilities because I was (still am) a child and did not have the talents or endurance to finish them. Now that I'm a little older, I think I can handle it. LOL FAT CHANCE. But here's to trying, because I am gonna miss the hell out of playing the remake for what—another year? Two? Five hundred? Are video game creations essential during a pandemic? Because yes, I believe they are. Especially if they're about eco-terrorsim and killing the earth while you're a character that doesn't really care because that's ironic.
> 
> I am not funny with writing. Give me emotional turmoil and manipulation and angst. That I can do. Humor is hard, but I tried? I bet you can spot where my old writing ended and my newer writing began. 
> 
> It’s weird to be back in the world of final fantasy 7 again after so long, but I am really, really enjoying it. I didn’t even know I missed it. Happy reading! All comments, thoughts, love, hate are inhaled like chocolate and heroin.

“Aren’t you glad you came, now? The DJ is the bomb!”

Yuffie screams loud enough to cover the music and then some. Tifa winces in response.

“Sure, Yuffie,” she says, somewhat limp as she lets Yuffie run her across the bar to the dance floor. She swings her arms around Tifa and does a Wutain hop step that Tifa’s never seen before.

“If I’m going to dance with you, I’m going to need another drink,” Tifa states.

“What?” Yuffie shrills. Tifa rolls her eyes. “Do that awesome dance move you showed me!”

“I need a drink, Yuffie.”

“But we already did that!”

Yuffie has approximately five percent body fat. No matter how much alcohol she imbibes, her tolerance never raises. She only needs a few stiff drinks before she’s flying high on drunken bliss. Tifa’s pretty sure her tolerance has something to do with owning a bar, no matter how family-friendly. Or maybe it’s the size of her boobs. Either way, both can’t help.

Yuffie doesn’t even need shots to act the way she does, arms and legs deftly moving like water around Tifa. For a ninja, Yuffie’s pretty much got every angle down. She could include a double backhand spring into her dance moves if there weren’t so many people in the way.

“Don’t be such a log, Teef! Do that really hot dance move you showed me a few days ago!”

Tifa blows a stray hair out of her face. Yuffie’s talking about a dance move she performed in their shared bedroom, alone, copying one of their favorite singers on television. It had been a joke, but that seems to have been conveniently forgotten.

“After I drink.”

She tries to get away, but Yuffie’s grip is unrelenting.

“No!” she shouts. “You can’t rely on a depressant to help you forget about dark, tall, and so-quiet-it’s-painful! You need a stimulant! And to get one, you gotta let loose and dance like you wanna fuck the shit out of someone!”

Tifa grimaces. “I think rebound sex is worse than getting drunk, Yuffie.”

“What?” Yuffie shouts again, bobbing her head around. It’s nearly unhinging from her neck. Tifa smiles a little at her, but untangles herself from Yuffie’s grip, shaking her head and lifting her hands up in a placating gesture.

“Sorry,” Tifa says, raising her voice. “I’ll be back soon.”

Yuffie pouts, gives her a dry look, and continues her moves elsewhere, bumping into strangers and grinning when they bump back.

Tifa shoves her way back to the less congested freedom of the bar. Sometimes, she wishes she could be as easy-going as Yuffie. She makes up and breaks up without a care in the world. She’s the most resilient person she’s ever met, flicking through boys like reading a good book and tossing them aside when she’s done.

Yuffie’s a sex hound. At least, she _claims_ to be. Maybe she’ll know what it’s like to get a broken heart when she’s courted the right way. Or not. Is Tifa the only one wired that way?

She takes a vacant seat at the counter and orders her drink.

Rude was—is—a great guy. He’d send her flowers, frequent her bar and make eyes at her, ask her on a date, kiss her hand, open doors. He was a gentleman plus one. He did all those things she dreamed about a guy. Treating her like a queen. Giving her attention and displaying just the right amount of possession. His eyes were warm and lingering underneath his sunglasses, telling her things his voice couldn’t.

Yeah. It’d been great. There was nothing exactly the same as being courted, given affection and returning it. Maybe she was old-fashioned, but she enjoyed it. And he was persistent about it. So what happened?

She sucks her drink down, setting it in plain view for the bartender to refill.

She didn’t know—still doesn’t know. Maybe she didn’t give him enough inclination to take it a step further. Maybe he got tired of their time together, their conversations. Maybe she plainly sucked at being a girlfriend. Maybe she missed a cue.

She’s always been kind of bad with the males. Gaining their attention was one thing. Her breasts made that one of the easiest things in the world. Keeping their attention was another thing entirely.

Whatever. Maybe he wanted sex.

She almost spits out her drink.

He wanted sex.

_Of course._

She hadn’t told Yuffie that she never let him unfold the laundry, but Yuffie had asked and interpreted Tifa’s blushing as confirmation. So Yuffie just shrugged, patted her head, and told her, who needed him, anyway? If he couldn’t appreciate her for anything other than wanting physical pleasures, then he wasn’t worth it in the first place. Tifa didn’t have the voice to dissuade the assumption.

God, how stupid can she get? It’s what all guys want. And they’d been dating long enough—but…well…

Sure, maybe Tifa _is_ a little old-fashioned, but she isn’t a _prude_. And Rude never communicated that that’s what he wanted…

Not that he was very good at communicating, but Tifa always prided herself on reading him. Could she have missed such a gigantic sign? Wanting sex is like a blinking neon light after midnight. Blaring and obvious.

Newly angered and frustrated, Tifa finishes her third drink without breathing. If she mentioned anything to Yuffie, she’d probably look at her pityingly and with a frown, mad at her for never correcting her on such a detail. Not that sex was the only binding element to a relationship. Something else was wrong, and the only thing Tifa’s mind could see was herself. Her personality? What else could it be? It wasn’t Rude. Not from what she could tell. He was great. Perfect. Quiet, yes, but perfect.

She glares at her glass. Then when she gets tired of not getting any answers from her empty glass, she glares at her newly refilled glass. Then she notices a man sitting beside her—seemingly alone, like her—nursing a dark drink. Probably bourbon. Whiskey. Something bitter to take the edge off the harsh cruelties of the world.

“Hey,” she starts. “If we dated, would you dump me if it had been five months and we hadn’t had sex?”

Normally, Tifa would never ask a complete stranger such a direct question. But this is what it’s come down to, her pride stripped and personality coming into question. Also: inebriation.

The man turns his head, looking at her bemusedly and raising a brow above very blue, icy eyes. They’re a surprisingly intense shade, but she keeps the stare. Eventually his lips pull down into a frown, his bemusement evolving into amusement.

“What kind of sex?”

She almost snorts at his answering question. “Oh, I don’t know. Any?”

His eyes remain on her face, though she wonders if he’s tempted to look at the rest of her. Most of the males do that. Look at her. Not that she’s never not flattered by perusals, but Rude hasn’t been her only break up, and something tells her her boobs are part of her predicament.

“No.”

She huffs. “Don’t act like there’s a right answer to this. I want an honest opinion.”

This time, she does notice him look down at her. “Did you want me to say yes?”

“No! I mean…” she sighs. “Never mind. Forget I said anything.” She waves a hand at him, then turns back to her drink.

“It’s a hard question to forget,” says the man, but he turns back to his drink, and she’s not sure why she was so hopeful for him to give her _the answer._ The one answer that would answer everything.

Tifa slows down on her drinking, keeping time on her fourth. It’s a minute before the man speaks again, and it takes her completely off guard.

“Was he blind?”

Tifa turns and stares at him. “What?”

“You know,” he says, gesturing toward her body. Tifa feels her jaw dropping. “Sure, the guy’d want to have sex with you, but there’s gotta be another reason if he didn’t want to see _you_ every day.”

Was he flirting? “Excuse me?”

“You own a mirror. You know what you look like.”

Is that a compliment? Tifa isn’t sure. She feels her cheeks go hot in fervor or incredulity, she isn’t certain. She shakes her head. “What?” she splutters.

He glances down at her glass. “You might want to stop drinking.”

“I do not,” she says, narrowing her eyes. “I can handle myself. Maybe you’re the one who should stop drinking.”

His gaze flickers, and he leans toward her with his elbow on the counter. “You’re the one who asked my honest opinion.”

His eyes don’t bother her. It’s more of the way they _search into her soul_. Jeez, even Rude’s eyes couldn’t do that.

She inwardly sighs. _Rude_.

She averts her eyes, looking back at her half-emptied glass. “Thanks, I guess. But what’s done is done.” She finishes the rest of her drink, setting down the glass with a resigned _thunk_ , and goes to stand. Her head lightens for a second before returning to normal. Her arms and legs feel light enough with the burning euphoria of alcohol, and that’s really all she needs.

“Leaving?” he asks her.

She shakes her head, forcing a smile. “Dancing.” She turns before thinking better of it. “Wanna come?”

His lips turn up in a quiet smirk. “I don’t dance.”

She places her hands on her hips. “Can’t dance or won’t dance?”

He half-shrugs. “Both.”

She squints at him. “So you’re just here to drink?”

“I guess.”

“That’s not an answer.”

His brows rise in amusement again. “I was roped into coming.”

She makes a show of glancing around him. “By who?”

“My friend and his girlfriend.”

Ah. Classic case of The Third Wheel-ism. Maybe.

“So where’s your date?”

“Don’t have one.” His eyes leave her as he goes back to his drink.

She steps up to him. “Then how could you have been roped if they didn’t set you up with someone?”

“I’ve got persuasive friends.”

The way he says it almost sounds like he’s talking about a murder.

She can relate. She has the same problem with Yuffie, most of the time.

“Well…” she says, shifting her weight around on her heels. “I can teach you how to dance.”

She garners his attention again. “ _Teach_ me?”

There’s something in his face that makes her indignant. She stands taller, placing her hands on her hips. “Yeah, _teach_ you. It’s not hard.”

He gives her a skeptical look instead of answering.

She sighs. “C’mon. Don’t be such a sickler.”

“Sickler?”

She blushes. “Stickler. I said stickler.”

He smirks again. “Okay. Stickler.”

“So?”

“So…?”

“Dance. You, me.”

“What about, dance, me, you?”

She smiles before she realizes he’s making fun of her.

“Cut it out!”

“Cut what out?”

“The thing you’re doing. It!”

“It?”

One long, drawn breath flows out of her. She crosses her arms.

“Fine, I bake tack my invitation.”

“…what? Bake—”

“Take back! I said—” She interrupts herself with an involuntary noise of frustration, her lips pressing over her teeth. She opens her mouth to bite something out, but he surprises her with a little smile instead of a little smirk.

It’s a nice smile. She wonders what it looks like when it’s a _full_ smile.

He takes advantage of her pause. “Go dance. I’m more of a visual learner, anyway.”

Not knowing what to say to that without sounding even stupider, she quickly turns away to leave him and finds Yuffie, who’s on the edge of the floor, making eyes at someone or other as she does very provocative things while she dances.

It’s only when she goes to stand next to her when what the guy at the bar said registers. She glances over to him, finding that he’s looking at her, too.

Holy Shiva, she thinks. He’s seriously going to watch me dance?

Guys only did that to Yuffie!

Or, well, if they ever did it to Tifa, she didn’t notice. If she thought a guy was watching her, she’d be uncomfortable enough to _stop_ dancing. Leering, creepy, men were definitely not the kind of attention she wanted.

Yet, the guy’s stare isn’t leering. It doesn’t _seem_ creepy.

It is kind of… _hot_.

She grumbles at herself. Tipsy or not, she’s got to collect herself.

“Yuffie,” Tifa shouts, tearing Yuffie’s eyes away from the man she’s gazing at by forcefully turning her. “I need your help! There’s a guy that’s watching me dance!”

Yuffie keeps doing her own brand of sexy things. “So?”

“ _So,”_ Tifa emphasizes. “I need guidance!”

Yuffie frowns at her. “Guidance? What guidance! Aren’t you drunk enough to dance like you usually dance when you aren’t down in the dumps?”

Tifa takes too long to process the sentence. “Well, I don’t know, I think I’m thinking too hard about – “

“Oh, I know!” Yuffie says, suddenly excited. “Let’s role play! Lesbians are fun.”

Tifa blinks. “Yuffie, we only do that for you and _your_ watchers.”

_“Yeah_ ,” she says, deliberately. “But it works for every male with a working dick, and you finally got the attention of a guy that makes you nervous even when you’re tipsy, so I say we bust out the hotness.”

Tifa almost protests, if only to protest what Yuffie implied. But then Yuffie moves her hands onto Tifa, sliding to the beat, and Tifa’s inebriated limbs start moving, and she starts sliding, and she starts dancing back. Suddenly, it’s easy with Yuffie grinning at her without a care in the world. The thrum has her eyes closing, forgetting where she is for a few precious moments. She moves a hand up to her hair and combs her fingers through it. Eventually, she opens her eyes, glancing back to the man at the bar.

She can’t make out his expression, but he’s still watching her. Isn’t he? She’s not sure anymore. It’s hard to tell under the dark, shadowy lighting and the blur of bodies. Truthfully, the fact of the matter is, she suddenly wants to just dance, regardless of who’s watching. Who cares? She _hurts_ , and it’s dulled by grinding against Yuffie, then grinding against some stranger behind her and in front of her and beside her, and it feels a hell of a lot better than it did when she first arrived.

She hears Yuffie make some kind of catcall behind her when Tifa starts dancing with another guy beside her. He places his hands low on her hips, all warm and digging. She turns her back to him, leaning into him and reaching a hand up to grasp the man’s neck, letting her lips part slightly. Minutes pass. It might as well be hours. She closes her eyes. His hips sway with her hips, knees bending to give them more leverage. She lifts her other hand up eventually, clasping both hands together behind the man’s head, and she feels his hands rise up an inch, settling near her belly button. His lips are by her ear, his breath is on her neck. Goosebumps rise unwillingly at the sensation.

She slides her eyes open just enough, the bar right in the middle of her line of sight.

The man’s seat is empty.

Something deflates inside her, and she almost loses the beat to keep dancing.

What is so wrong with her that no one wants to stick around? Not even for a stupid dance? Not even to watch her? She doesn’t think she’s bad at it—not nearly as good as Yuffie, but good enough, right?

She must lose her edge, because the man behind her slows and asks, “You okay?”

And there’s something about the tone—how scratchy and rough.

She gasps and snaps around, staring up at him wide eyed. She looks back to the vacant spot at the bar then back up to his blue eyes.

She points, accusing. “But—but you said you—“

He smiles at her reaction, like the smile before, and it is _so distracting_. “I’m a fast learner.”

Her mind reels through her burning buzz. How long, exactly, had she been dancing with him? She hadn’t even felt the transition between the man she started with and him. Her face starts sizzling. Had she run her fingers through his hair, pressed into him like a snake?—and it was even worse because now, technically, he isn’t a complete stranger.

The spots scald where he touched her.

“Um…” she says. “Sorry. I didn’t notice when you…switched.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he tells her, glancing over to the bar. “Figured it’d be better me than someone else.”

He says it so casually and bluntly that she gives him a curious look, saying with a playful lilt, “A little full of yourself, aren’t you?”

He looks back at her, but doesn’t answer her question. “You put on a show.”

She feels herself smiling, the rouge of the alcohol blistering her veins. “Did it turn you on?”

“Did what turn me on?”

She leans forward a little, right hand grazing boldly on his stomach.

“Don’t be like that,” she says, swaying to the back rhythm. “Since I know you’re here, why don’t we keep dancing?”

He watches as she tries to propel him along with her. “Are you always like this?”

She hears herself laugh, and she never laughs like that. But she doesn’t care, now. The guy’s eyes don’t pierce her as much as they did before, and everything’s all the better for that.

“Of course not,” she admits freely. “But this is fun, don’t you think?” She presses against his chest, and he leans with her. She catches his eyes fall to her clip in her hair, then her red stained lips. It’s almost as if he hesitates when he finally puts his hands on her hips. She smiles. Her sways linger, and she influences his movements, body tenaciously cutting the space between his.

She and Rude never went dancing. At least, not this kind of dancing. Rude could dance a killer waltz, transporting her to another place rather than the restaurants they went to. They were good nights—and she hates how she thinks of him in so many past tenses, as if he’s lying around in a coffin.

But some things ended like a death. For them, the friendship inside the relationship could not be salvaged. She tried—she could tell he tried, in his own way. They can still talk, at least. They can talk about all kinds of mundane things. The weather. _How are you?_ I’m well. _Great._ Goodbye.

She’s certain, however, that she will never talk to him about anything else.

She watches the pulse pluck through the man’s neck in front of her—and it’s a nice neck. A lot of things are nice about him. It occurs to her that his name might be nice, too, but she’s not going to ask him what it is. Names lead to subjects and topics and things that hold _weight._

Instead, she weaves her arms around his neck, pulling them close together like a coil. Her heels give her enough height to be near eye level with him, noses brushing, and she asks, “Do you want to go somewhere?”

He’s quiet for a moment, and even uncaring and falling into inebriation, she can see his eyes thinking—like they’re swirling around his iris, blue spirals twisting all around.

“There are plenty of empty tables,” he says.

It’s so unexpected, it pulls a laugh out of her.

“No,” she elongates. “Not a table. Not here.”

He humors her. “What did you have in mind?”

“Somewhere…” she says. “Somewhere where we can…”

He watches her struggle with that stupid little smirk on his face, and all she wants to do is kiss him. So she does. It doesn’t take much, since they’re so close already. And when she feels him, all warm and alive and real, right up against her, it’s all so wonderful and thrilling and amazing.

She’s never kissed a stranger before.

She’s never been a floozy—and she’s never been easy. Maybe that’s her problem. Is that a problem?

She decides right then, in the middle of their kiss, that she’ll pry herself open and be the easiest, most vulnerable being she can. Because she has enough control of herself to do what she wants to, and that’s what she wants to do. No one can say any differently. Life is short and painful, so why not?

He responds to her, one hand tight on her hip, the other flat on the small of her back. His lips are as needy as hers, pressing hot with raw desire. It shocks Tifa with how intimate this is with a person she hardly knows, her world becoming her own adrenaline-charged heartbeats and the man’s teeth.

Her fingers blaze trails through his hair, and he answers by licking her bottom lip. She leans further into him—her legs turning to jelly—and he supports her weight with his own as she collapses her lungs in a delicate moan.

He breaks away from her a second after, eyes dark under the lights.

“C’mon,” he commands, grabbing one of her hands with his, leading her toward the exit.

Tifa still has a thread of logic with her, surprising herself. “But Yuffie—“

“Your friend?” he asks. “She’ll be fine.”

She looks behind her, catching Yuffie’s dark head bobbing, seated at a table. She’s talking to a man who may or may not be a serial killer, considering his attire.

They catch eyes for a moment, and all Yuffie does is grin wide and waggle her fingers after her, winking with absolutely no discretion whatsoever.

“Okay…” Tifa trails. “But if she gets kidnapped, it’s your fault.”

He looks over at her with the barest of smiles. It’s only when she notices the motorcycle he’s leading her to that she doesn’t think his smile is cute anymore.

It’s suddenly very hot. Too hot. She’s sweating.

“Oh,” she says.

“Ever ride a motorcycle before?” he asks, settling himself on the seat. He turns back to her and holds out his hand. She stares at it.

“Never.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you.”

What a weird choice of words, she remembers thinking.

“You drank.”

“I had one an hour ago. I’m fine.”

She stares at him. He stares back.

Then she places her hand in his, letting him help her onto the saddle. It could be the best or worst decision she’s ever made—and she’s okay with that. Drinking, dancing, a motorcycle, a guy who’s wearing all black. Sure. Yes. This is fine.

He hands her the helmet that he unhooks from the motorcycle handle, and she’s pleasantly surprised at the action. She fumbles with it as she finds it necessary to say, “Just so you know, I’m a black belt. Tae Kwon Do. I can kick your ass.”

He revs up the engine, loud and angry. “I'll keep that in mind.”

Satisfied, she goes and wraps her arms around his waist as he slowly turns onto the road. She tightens her grip when he speeds off right away.

She doesn’t notice where they go or what roads he takes. But it doesn’t take long for her to get used to the rumbling of the engine beneath her, the gears ticking like a heart. Mixing the sound with the coolness of the wind and the warmth they both create pressed together, she closes her eyes and lets relaxation fill her.

“Where do you live?” he asks her sometime, voice just loud enough over the din of every other noise.

“Mm,” she mumbles. “Seventh Heaven.”

She must doze, or the alcohol must catch up to her, because she can’t remember what happens next.

* * *

When Tifa wakes up, she opens her eyes to familiarity, soft sheets, soft pillows, and a sun that is too high—and just a little too bright.

She’s on the verge of having a hangover, but she doesn’t yet—so that’s good. She might have a headache later, and she makes a mental note to drink water immediately.

She sits up, pressing her palm to her forehead when her mind starts to reel back. Her brain feels like rubber, and when she tries to remember what exactly she did the night before—and how she miraculously ended up home—things come in bits and pieces.

Wallowing in self-pity. The man at the bar. Dancing with the man at the bar. Making out with the man at the bar. A motorcycle.

Her lips burn at the memories. She feels the ghost of his tongue when she closes her eyes. But her sheets aren’t tangled up like she actually went through with what she was considering the night before, and Yuffie—

Tifa glances at the bed pushed against the other wall, making out the ball inside the sheets, curled up in Yuffie-fashion. She waits for the tell-tale snore, and she smiles a little when she hears it.

No telling how or when she got back home. She’ll probably sleep all day.

She gets up off the bed, and it confirms her suspicions of not having sex with some random, but attractive, stranger. She can’t tell if her relief trumps her disappointment.

She washes up in the bathroom before going downstairs to the bar, checking the clock again just to make sure her bedroom clock wasn’t lying. 2 pm. It could be worse, she thinks. She grabs a bottle of water from the fridge, checks the mail, makes lunch, and does a few chores before there’s a knock at the front door.

She frowns as she makes her way to the door. It must be the supplies she ordered from Corel, though she only put it in the day before. The deliveries are never this speedy.

It doesn’t even cross her mind to look out the peephole. Once she opens the door, she almost falls over.

It’s the guy from the New Midgar bar, holding a vase of wild red roses. They stare at each other for a long moment, and Tifa doesn’t think he seems as surprised as he should be.

“I have a delivery for a Miss Tifa Lockhart,” he says, mortifyingly nonchalant. Tifa’s mouth hangs open as she slowly takes the gift out of his hands.

“You’re…why are you delivering…” she manages, shaking her head. “Is this some kind of joke?”

He raises his brows at her. “I’m doing my job. I’m a courier.”

She feels very stupid and very enlightened at the sudden information. She winces.

“Oh,” she says. “Oh, I’m sorry. I just wasn’t expecting to see you.” Again. Ever.

He crosses his arms, eyes roaming to the interior of the bar. “Your friend make it back?”

“Yeah,” Tifa answers, about to ask him how Yuffie made it, before her eyes find the small card perched on a plastic prong among the stems. She feels a sudden sickness at the name. “She…did.”

He notices the shift in her attitude. “Is there something—“

She forces the flowers into his chest, his arms uncrossing to catch them.

“Do you think you could return these to the sender?” she asks, anger upending her manners. “Or if it’s too much hassle, you can throw them away in the trashcan on the left side of the building.”

His face is filled with puzzlement, glancing between her and the flowers, before it evolves into a look of knowing. And aversion.

“You were dating _Rude_?”

She flinches at his tone. “Yes. Now I’m not. And he still has the audacity to send me flowers after almost three weeks.”

He watches her throw up her hands. She huffs. “Ugh! I’m just so…oooohhhhh,” she grumbles, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Of all the stupid things...Of all the times…”

The man changes his stance, motioning the flowers. “I can return them.”

She looks up at him, abruptly feeling terrible and grateful and ashamed. She immediately shakes her head.

“You know what? You’ve done so much already, what with…last night,” she says, meekly. “And driving me back home and…and everything. I’m sorry you had to do that. I promise I’m not really like that.”

He leans against the doorjamb, eyes amused. “Some part of you is like that.”

She opens her mouth then closes it, crinkling her eyes at him. She gives a half-smile. “Well, maybe,” she relents. “But only rarely.”

“It’s okay.”

She averts her eyes. “You only liked me that way because I made out with you.”

She swears she can see his cheeks dust a very light pink. He rubs the back of his head with a free hand.

“I, uh…like I said, I can take these back.”

She notices his stutter. Her smile grows. “Only if it doesn’t put you back on any of your other deliveries. I can always just throw them out.”

“I’m not that busy,” he says. “Besides, he deserves it.”

They look at each other for a few seconds. She glances at the clock.

“Well, it’s almost dinner time. If you aren’t too busy, I can whip you something up. It’s the least I could do.”

He seems flustered by the offer. “I appreciate it, but I should get going.”

“Oh, right,” she nods. “Of course.”

“Yeah…” he says. “Maybe some other time.”

“Yes, yeah. Some other time.”

He scuffs his boot. “I…should get going,” he says, again, lingering for a moment before turning. “I’ll…see you around.”

“Sure,” she says, stepping closer to the door and leaning out, her hand on the knob. “Come back anytime.”

He gives her one of his tiny smiles, gets on the same motorcycle he drove last night. He places the flowers back into the box they must have come in, and speeds off.

Once he’s out of sight, she closes the door and breathes out, puffing her cheeks up. She guesses that could have gone worse.

* * *

Rude must get the message. A few weeks pass, and Tifa doesn’t receive one peep from him. She doesn’t receive a package from the new courier, either.

She believes that was she feels is…neutral. A little bland about Rude, but it’s turning stale. It at once feels as though eons have passed as well as minutes. Sometimes she thinks back to those five months, trying to imagine things she could change, but it was all natural enough. Even if she went back, she’s not sure she could change anything. Not how she acted, not what she did.

During slow times at the bar, when she doesn’t have anything to cook or clean, she thinks about the guy from the bar, if only because she’d never done something so crazy and reckless to herself. She’ll think of their kiss and compare them to Rude—at first out of spite, then out of curiosity. Then she’ll think about it just because she’s completely smitten with the memory.

She has to admit, the stranger gave her hope. He was, if not conventionally, a perfect gentleman. He talked to her, danced with her, kissed her, then showed her home. If they did anything else, she knows she would have remembered it. Surely if she remembered the _kiss_ , then she definitely would have remembered _anything else._

And then he helped her finalize her relationship with the flowers.

He was so handsome when he blushed.

And he was a courier. Being a courier is a hard job. There’s a reason there’s such a shortage of them—not many want to, or have the ability to cross terrible stanzas of rough terrain, fight off beasts in the long stretches of fields, or take on the vast loneliness the occupation entailed.

He must be a good fighter. He did have muscular arms, now that she thinks back to it. He had a singularity to him, too. The look of someone who’s been on their own long enough to gain that thickened aura. Tifa was an orphan—became one—and she knew an orphan when she saw one, tipsy or not.

It starts to irk her, days later, when she tries to think of a name for him. Of course, it’s good that she doesn’t have one. It’d be forever burned to her mind if she did. And since she doesn’t have one, it’ll be easier to let the memory fade. It’ll make a good story, one of these days.

* * *

Wednesday nights are the busiest time for Seventh Heaven. Patrons cram into booths and tables, families arriving between six and nine. Some people defy the odds and sing karaoke between ten and eleven, and others hit the jukebox and dance when there’s enough room. No grinding or obscene moves. That doesn’t happen until after midnight, and the time usually includes the people Tifa has to kick out at two.

It’s nearing ten o’clock when the next wave of customers come in, with the staff members making whirlwinds around to tables, and Tifa and her other bartender, Jessie, are in charge of cranking out drinks, talking, and smiling to patrons.

It’s only when Yuffie swings around the counter, fetching the water pitcher from bar, when Tifa loses her stride.

“Yo, Teef!” she says, a tell-tale grin on her face. “On your eleven, Mister Make-Out’s at the booth with a couple others.”

Tifa blinks. “What?”

“Mister Make-Out. _You_ know. Don’t act like that, I know you’re so excited right now,” Yuffie says cheekily. “Want me to get his number for you? Cop a feel and say it’s from you? Tell him you want sex, this time?”

“Yuffie, shut up,” she growls, noticing two customers in earshot not able to conceal their humored looks. “Don’t do anything. He’s just a customer. Treat him like you treat every customer.”

She pouts. “But Teef, it’s been ages since you saw him. Wouldn’t a nice romp—“

“I can still fire you, Yuffie.”

Yuffie hears the blatant threat. She sneers. “Ugh, fine, boss lady. It’s your loss.”

She sashays off into the throng, and Tifa has to keep herself from looking off diagonally to see if Yuffie had seen the right guy. Half-fearing that they’ll catch eyes when she looks up, she forces herself to concentrate on the customers in front of her.

It lasts about three minutes. It’s just a twitch of the eye. She smiles at a customer, then blends her glance by looking off to the side.

Yuffie’s right. He sits in a booth, across from two others and sitting beside another, facing toward her. She looks away before he has a chance to catch her looking, but she feels a genuine smile creep up on her. She feels her steps perk up a bit, and the casual questions she directs to her patrons aren’t nearly as tired as they were before.

“One whiskey sour, coming right up,” she tells one of her customers, moving down the bar line to grab the right ingredients. She’s pouring in the whiskey when the patron in front of her gives her a simple, “Hey.”

She almost starts, but manages not to spill whiskey everywhere. She glances up, taking in his shock of hair and blue eyes so close up. She notices two bandage strips underneath his right eye, and the wrap around his left bicep, the lines of a bruise peeking out from behind it. Maybe the injuries are from his job. She gives him a smile in greeting.

“Hey. How’ve you been?”

“Busy,” he says. “You?”

“The same,” she answers, finishing off the drink. She turns to the side. “Hey, Jess, can you give this to Robert? Thanks.” She turns back to him. “What’d you like to drink?”

“I don’t want anything.”

She squints at him, mostly playful, before the man sitting next to him interrupts.

“You must be new, sonny. Tifa doesn’t let you sit up here to talk if you don’t buy anythin’.” He grins at her. “Her words don’t come cheap.”

Tifa puts a hand on her hip and cocks it to the side. “Thanks for the explanation, Eddie,” she says, winking at him.

“Anytime, darlin’. You better watch out for that one,” he says, jutting his thumb to his side.

“You might be right,” Tifa says, eyes shimmering at the stranger. “He’s a suspicious character, isn’t he? The cuts and the bandages…”

“Damn right.”

The man raises his brows at their jesting, but he keeps quiet, silent enjoyment in his eyes as he watches her.

“Alright, then,” the man says. “Give me something hard.”

“Do you mean soft? Or tight?” Yuffie says, barging around the corner from the side counter. “Because I’m pretty sure Tifa wouldn’t mi—“

Tifa jams her elbow into Yuffie’s side as she passes behind her, causing Yuffie to cough like she swallowed a cloud of dust.

“Ugh…” she grumbles. “…thanks for the bruise, boss.”

“I can raise your rent,” Tifa sing-songs back, laughing as Yuffie holds her ribs.

She turns back to the man in front of her, only to find him watching her. It’s such an intense, earnest, soft look. Her smile falls and she feels her face heat up. She tries to hide it by looking away toward the bottles of alcohol behind her, acting like she’s searching for a drink.

“Is whiskey fine?”

“Sure,” he answers, and she busies herself with the ice. She grabs the whiskey bottle she used minutes earlier, pouring a few fingers into his glass. When she hands it to him, he tips it up.

“Thank you, Tifa.”

She doesn’t know what it is about him—if it’s anything real or just her imagination—but the way he says her name gets under her skin. Like he’s digging a place for himself and settling there.

She gets this from him saying her name. She’s crazy. She’s made up too many stories about him in her head.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she starts, leaning against the counter on her elbows. “Each time I’ve talked to you, I never thought to ask you your name.”

He takes a sip of his drink as she speaks. “Does this mean you’re asking?”

She has to admit, there is something intriguing and mysterious about a man with no name.

“I think I’d…rather…” she trails, eyes catching on a new patron that walks through the door. She immediately straightens, frowning.

“Jessie?” she calls over to her right side. “Watch my side for a minute? I’ll be right back.”

“What’s wrong?” the man asks.

“Just…something,” she tells him as she walks around from behind the bar.

She catches Rude’s eye quick enough, noticing the way he shifts when he must see her from behind his sunglasses.

It’s funny how she’s not mad at him, anymore. At herself. At anything. Reflections over the past two months filled her with murky feelings, a montage of the good times in lieu of the bad times.

But when she sees him now, coming to her bar willingly, on his own, it feels like a punch in the throat. It’s full of that _what if_ , that _remember what we once had?_ It fills up her esophagus like question marks, running through her like all of those potential futures. It’s a staid, somber taste in her mouth.

Tifa has always forgiven naturally. It’s never been a hard thing for her to do, and she hasn’t thought of it as a blessing until this moment, when she remembers her broken heart reflecting back at her in Rude’s sunglasses, when she remembers her tears and her weakness. How _little_ she felt, curled up on her bed and thinking about what she had done wrong, what details she could have changed. Those dark and cold little moments when she was alone with her thoughts.

“Rude. Hi,” she says, coming up to him. They stand close to the entrance.

He nods to her, face softening. He opens his mouth, and then he closes it. He struggles, rubbing the top of his head before taking his sunglasses off. He looks at her with his direct stare, and she feels herself parrying it back, like the look is a swinging sword and her heart is a shield instead of a prize.

“Tifa…” he says, voice sounding coarse with disuse. “I’m sorry. I’ve been thinking a lot these few weeks. I left you without answers. I couldn’t give them to you. You deserve more than that—“

“Oh, Rude,” she says, silencing him by lightly touching his sleeved arm. “I don’t deserve anything. It’s okay. I don’t need answers.”

How odd it seems to be, now, when once she craved it like her favorite candy. Anything for a hint of an answer and for a reason. Dulled by the passing of time, staring up at the ceiling when lying awake at night, she’s reached the threshold of not caring. It wouldn’t matter. The answers would never satisfy her. There is no reason for her to indulge in what she doesn’t need, even though once— _once_ —it was the only reason there was.

“But…Tifa, don’t say that…”

She shrugs. “It’s true. You know me well enough to know that.”

He looks down to the floor. He has the decency to seem ashamed. “I’m sorry about the flowers.”

The terribly saddened way he says it pulls a warm laugh from her. “I know you meant well. At the time I got them, though…”

“I know,” he says, grimacing. “Cloud told me.”

She blinks. “Who?”

“WRO’s new delivery boy.”

Recognition washes over her. “Oh. Right. Cloud. Um…”

“If…if you ever need anything,” Rude continues, shifting his weight. His telling sign that he’s not sure how to convey what he means. “Just…just let me know. I’ll be around, even if I couldn’t be then.”

She nods at him, placing a hand on her hip. “I’ll hold you to that, okay?”

She manages to get him to smile a rare smile. At least he can leave with something—a beam of hope, a clean slate—even if it’s a lie.

“I might stop by sometime, if that’s…”

“Of course you can, Rude. This place isn’t off-limits to you, you know, as long as you order something from the menu.”

He hums a laugh. “Sure. I will. I’ll…see you, Tifa.”

“Goodbye, Rude.”

When he walks through the door, it’s almost as if the last weight leaves her. It’s the last tug on the loose thread of an old sweater, completely unraveled and ready to be remade. 

She returns, smiling, behind the counter. Her expression is the exact opposite of…Cloud’s. _Cloud._ The name’s mystery is gone, but when she glances over him she realizes how much it only whets her hunger to know more.

“Everything okay?” he asks her, once she takes back her place from Jessie and refills a customer’s drink.

“Everything’s fine, _Cloud.”_

He glances up sharply at his name.

“He told you my name?”

He says it like the words are poison. She furrows her brows at him.

“Well, he told you mine,” she answers back. “Even though it was on a card.”

“I knew before that.”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “What?”

“When I brought you back here,” he says, bluntly. “Owner of Seventh Heaven. Everyone in Edge knows you.”

Oh. She hadn’t thought of that. She frowns, trying to think of something to say. She glances down at his drink, seeing it empty.

“Want a refill?”

“No, thanks,” he says dismissively, glaring at the counter. It’s a definite change of pace from his earlier flirtations.

“Then I’m sorry,” she answers. “But I’m going to have to ask you to leave the counter.”

Glare still on his face, he looks up at her. “But I ordered something.”

“And now you finished.” She smiles apologetically, grabbing a washrag from the sink. “I’m sorry, Cloud, but rules are rules. I can’t be partial to you and no one else.” She starts to wipe down her work area before the few spills make the wood sticky.

“You could be if you wanted to be.”

She pauses, glancing up at him. “What?”

“You could be partial.”

She smiles and continues. “Well, if you become a regular, I might be.”

He taps his forefinger and middle finger, as if thinking.

“What did the bald guy want?”

She gives a disapproving look at the name. “Rude, you mean? Not a lot, just…uh…”

She’s suddenly uncomfortable with the topic—under his stare, she feels a bizarre sense of pressure.

“Nothing,” she says. “Everything between us is fine, now.”

“You’re back together?” he says after a moment, tone flat but eyes incredulous. She shakes her head.

“No, not at all,” she smiles. “Maybe we’ll be friends, maybe we won’t. Time will tell.”

His glare finally diminishes into the vestiges of a smile.

“Whoa!” Yuffie barges behind the counter again. “Was that who I thought it was? What the hell did he want?”

“He wanted to apologize, Yuffie,” Tifa says, rolling her eyes. “Why does everyone act like they hate him?”

“Um, newsflash Tifa!” Yuffie shouts, waving a hand in front of her face. “He broke your heart? Remember? He just took off like he realized you were some kind of alien? Seriously, who would do that to you?”

Yuffie’s point is valid. Still, Tifa sighs.

“I’ve been fine for a while. You know that.”

Yuffie rubs her chin, as if thinking. “I guess I’d be fine, too, if I was getting attention from—“

“Yuffie!” Tifa interrupts sharply. Yuffie laughs, moving down to the other side of the bar.

“Whatever, Teef,” she calls, and Tifa doesn’t miss the wink she sends Cloud.

Tifa groans. “Can you ignore her? Please?”

“Only if you let me keep sitting here.”

She puts her hands on her hips. “Someone drives a hard bargain, don’t they?”

“If it’s worth it, yeah.”

She’s been on the verge of blushing ever since he’s arrived. She gives a little huff, not knowing what to say.

“F-fine,” she says, making a small shrug. “I’ll let you loiter. But only tonight.”

“Only tonight?”

She gives him a mock-glare. “Don’t push it, Cloud. I have a reputation.”

A moment later, a beautiful girl comes up behind Cloud, light brown hair plaited down her back, ending close to her hips. She places a hand on his shoulder, smiling.

“Hey, Cloud.”

He turns to look at her, returning her smile. Tifa averts her eyes and busies herself with cleaning.

“Hey.”

“Listen,” she says. “Zack and I are heading out. We have to take Biggs back to his apartment. He…kind of passed out.”

“Kind of?” he asks, turning further to glance at a booth.

The girl shrugs. “He’s had a rough week, you know? Besides, we haven’t complained too much about you avoiding us to sit up here.” She catches Tifa’s eye and winks. “I guess it is hard to find pretty bartenders to flirt with in this town…”

Cloud gives her a flat stare. “Goodbye, Aerith.”

She titters, pats him on the head, and leaves.

Tifa watches her go. “She seems nice,” she teases him.

“She’s not,” he tells her, face completely serious.

She laughs at him. “Was she one of your _persuasive_ friends?”

“Yeah,” he says, surprise edging his tone. He looks over her. “You remember that?”

She meets his stare. “Sure, I remember.”

He raises a brow. “How much do you remember?”

Is this a trick question? She’s not sure.

“Enough,” she says breezily.

“Enough?”

She fidgets, other customers gaining her attention for a few precious minutes.

He’s still amused when she turns her attention back to him.

“So you remember the good parts?” he asks.

“Good parts?” she says innocently. “There were good parts?”

Cloud doesn’t fall for it, half-shrugging and saying, “I can help jog your memory.”

She blushes furiously. Her eyes fall to his lips on accident.

“If you want to,” she challenges lightly, trying to brush off her embarrassment.

He looks at her lips, too.

“What are you doing tomorrow?”

She jerks at the question. “Um, the same thing as today. Open for lunch through dinner, then man the bar.”

“When’s your next day off, then?”

She isn’t expecting this. He is very direct when he wants to be.

“Sunday…”

“Pick you up at seven?”

Her brain stalls. “Oh. Um. Okay.”

He smiles at her, leaves a generous amount of gil, then stands up from the stool. She watches him go until another customer calls her over.

_I guess it’s a date,_ she thinks, heart hammering in her chest.

* * *

Sunday evening comes quick.

Yuffie’s been throwing every kind of dress Tifa’s way all day, up to the last minute.

“You’re just so conservative right now,” Yuffie whined at her once Tifa held up her selection. “He already saw you in this one,” she said, bringing out a slinky slip of fabric Tifa’s almost ashamed to say she wore. “He’s going to be so disappointed when he sees _that.”_

“Okay, it is not that bad!” The dress isn’t as terribly conservative as Yuffie’s judgment proclaims it is. It’s just a nice, simple black cocktail dress. There’s nothing wrong with it. In fact, it’s one of her favorites. And it is technically a first date. She’s got to leave him wanting _something._ You don’t put out all the goods on display at the first date.

“But he’s already seen you in this,” Yuffie rebuts, shaking the slinky dress. “And all the goods were on display. All of them.”

Tifa purses her lips. “Whatever. I’m still wearing this one.”

“Fine. But remind him that it’s a date and not a funeral.”

Tifa rubs her face with her hand.

“I’ll be sure to mention it during the eulogy.”

Yuffie barks a laugh before rushing into the bathroom and pulling out approximately twenty-seven pieces of cosmetics. Tifa doesn’t wear much makeup in general, and when Yuffie catches her dubious look at the bathroom counter, she places her hands on her hips.

“Oh my gosh, c’mon, Teef! Just a little something! He already knows what you look like without, so let’s do more than powder and mascara. We can make this so fun.”

Yuffie brandishes different brands of eyeshadow like they’re ninja stars. Tifa eyes them, crossing her arms as Yuffie’s eyes gleam like she’s planning something diabolical. That usually never bodes well.

“As long as I can choose the colors. Remember when you tried to make me wear neon green eyeshadow and peppermint lipstick?”

“It was _Christmas!”_ Yuffie protests, but Tifa can’t suppress her laughter any longer. “But _fine,_ be boring as long as you wear some. Cloud is gonna go bananas. He’s going to be like, who is this goddess before me?”

Tifa shakes her head, rummaging around the different colors. “I’m sure he’ll fall to his knees in shock and wonder.”

“He’ll clasp his hands over his heart and ask the heavens what he ever did to deserve this day.”

“He’ll weep tears of unadulterated joy and enlightenment.”

“He’ll jump off a cliff just to make sure you’re real.”

“He’ll pass out in the doorway, unable to handle my beauty.”

“He’ll wish he wore something more adequate. Or nothing at all.”

Tifa snickers, attempting to begin with her primer as Yuffie continues describing more outlandish scenarios.

At 6:55 pm, Yuffie asks, “Do you think he’s the type to be fashionably late?” She peeks out the window. “Or maybe the kind to be too early, so he idles down the street and waits until it’s time? Or he’s the kind who is super early, then underestimates how long it’ll take him to get the nerve to leave his idling spot and he ends _up_ fashionably late?”

Tifa’s lips quirk. “That should be your first question when he gets here.”

At 6:58 pm, there’s a knock on the door. Yuffie places a hand on her forehead. “Oh, he’s the right on time type. I might swoon.”

“He is a courier,” Tifa says, the flutter of nerves suddenly swallowing her stomach like a vacuum. “Makes sense.”

She grabs her purse from the bar, checking it one last time for her essentials. She brushes a hand down her dress and feels a brief pang of doubt over her ensemble choice.

“Don’t be nervous,” Yuffie says lightly. “I know it’s your first real date in forever, but it’ll be fine.”

Tifa gives her a tight smile. “Thanks,” she says, readjusting herself one more time before heading to the door.

She opens it and sees him there, standing to the side with hands in his pockets. He’s wearing casual, light blue jeans that are fitted well across his thighs. His shirt is relaxed, dark grey cotton, melting across his torso like butter. The sleeves cut into his arms, accentuating where his shoulders fold into his biceps. Tifa doesn’t tend to get hung up on physical attributes but she can’t deny he’s very nice to look at.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hey,” he says back. They glance at each other for a moment, and Tifa swallows the engorging bundle of nerves in her throat.

“You ready to go?” he asks, gesturing behind them. His motorcycle is parked at the end of the curb, glinting under the dazzling glare of moonlight. It’s all sleek lines and black metal. She can almost feel the tick of the cooling engine from where they stand.

“If you bring her back at a decent hour, I will be so disappointed!” Yuffie calls behind them. She points at Cloud. “If you don’t give her the best time of her life, I will kick your ass.”

“No pressure, then,” Cloud answers. His eyebrows raise in quiet amusement.

Tifa rolls her eyes. “Don’t listen to her.”

“Yes, listen to me!”

“I’d like to try,” Cloud says, directing his answer towards Tifa. She tries not to blush.

“You won’t have to try very hard,” Yuffie says. “Tifa loves everything.”

Embarrassed, Tifa shoves Yuffie in the shoulder. “Not everything.”

“I know you, Teef. He could take you dumpster diving and you’d somehow find a way to enjoy it.”

Tifa purses her lips. Just because she tries not to judge…

“Good thing. That’s what I had planned,” Cloud says.

Tifa glances back to him, happily surprised to find he’s giving her a small smile. He offers her his arm, and she threads it around his elbow.

“You ready?”

“Yes.”

“Have fun!” Yuffie sing songs, waving enthusiastically. She closes the door, and Tifa is sure she’s watching them through the window, peeking behind the curtain.

They make their way to his motorcycle, the muggy evening saved by the occasional cool breeze.

“I’m not taking you dumpster diving,” he says.

“I was worried.”

“Nice dress, by the way.”

“Thank you. Nice…clothes,” she says. What she really wants to say is that his ass looks good in those jeans. If she was as daring as Yuffie, she would. She is not Yuffie. Just thinking the words make her fill with shame.

“I was told I better clean up.”

“Your persuasive friends again?”

“They are wise when they want to be.”

They come up to his motorcycle, and he takes his seat. He offers his hand to help her on, but the fabric of her dress requires her to hike it up above her knees and even further when she situates herself behind him. He doesn’t seem to mind.

Of course he doesn’t mind, she thinks, the voice suspiciously sounding like Yuffie. I’ll bet he’d love your legs wrapped around him like this in a frontal position.

He hands her a helmet, and she sees he’s brought two of them this time. He clips his on before he revs the engine. Her legs squeeze him, tensing for the takeoff.

“It’ll only be a few minutes,” he tells her. She nods.

“Sure,” she says, carefully resting her chin on his shoulder. She wraps her arms around his torso, suddenly feeling like they’re part of his shirt. Melted butter, she thinks again.

As they take off down the streets of Edge, Tifa relishes the rumbling life of the motorcycle and how it feels to be pressed up against a man who is almost still a stranger. Even if this night leaves much to be desired, and even if it turns out to be the worst date in the history of dates, at least she will remember the bridling anticipation, the bristling potential, and the muffler of the motorcycle drowning out everything else.

* * *

It is, in fact, not the worst date in the history of dates.

He takes her to a restaurant called the Honey Bee, in between the outskirts of Edge and New Midgar. It’s taken inspiration from its sister business in Sector Six, utilizing the more tasteful attributes of design. It’s less gawdy and more upscale, with chandeliers and luxurious, upholstered booths, gleaming cherry wood tables, and a color scheme rimmed with velvet reds, whites, and accented with gold trim. At first, the entrance is a dizzying array of sparkles and crystal, but the inner sanctum of dining tables pull back the extravagance with touches of personal décor—portraits of old Midgar and landscapes of Gaia, small, intimate candles in glass bulbs the shape of a honey bee, the lighting soft and welcoming.

This is the kind of place that cleaves at your wallet. Tifa bites the inner meat of her lip, unaccustomed to such lavish indulgence. She glances at Cloud’s jeans and tries not to question.

The maître d’ doesn’t ask who Cloud is, smiling brightly and grabbing menus straight away. “Ah, Mr. Strife. Follow me.”

Tifa raises her eyebrows. “They know you?”

He shrugs. “The owner and I are…acquaintances.”

Tifa blinks. The owner is just on the other side of famous. He has his own clothing line, cosmetics, athletic wear…Tifa even has a few of his exercise tights. She waits for him to expand, but he doesn’t. Once they are seated, the curiosity gets the best of her.

“The owner is Andrea Rhodea, isn’t it? He’s…a big deal,” she says.

“A lot of people like him,” Cloud says. “He gets along with most, and he owns several businesses.”

They pause to order drinks when the waiter appears. Tifa panic orders water, feeling uncertain about ordering a glass of wine, then feels silly about hesitating.

“How do you know him?”

“I first met him on my deliveries. He’s one of WRO’s biggest clients in the area. Then I met him again through a friend. He’s very…enthusiastic.”

“What do you mean?”

Cloud smiles quietly. He tends to have that demeanor about him. Everything is subdued and quiet. Soft smiles, soft movements, nothing extravagant. He is the opposite of their surroundings.

“He has specific…tastes,” Cloud says. “If he likes you enough, he’ll force you to go to his parlor and dance with him.”

Tifa’s eyebrows raise. “Dance? I knew he put on a lot of choreographed shows at the Honey Bee Parlor, but…” She pauses. “Wait, does that mean you’ve danced with Andrea Rhodea?”

He runs a hand along the back of his neck. “I didn’t dance. It was more like he dragged me across a stage.”

An abrupt, flustered laugh is pulled out of Tifa. “You _danced_ with Andrea Rhodea!”

A light blush finally appears along the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t… _dance,_ but he wanted me to.”

Tifa shakes her head at him, a mirthful smile stretched across her lips. “You _did_. You _know_ how to dance, don’t you? That’s why you danced with me the other night.”

“I—that’s not why I—” he stutters, only saved by the waiter delivering their drinks. Once the man leaves, Tifa ploughs on.

“It’s okay, Cloud. You can admit you know how to dance.”

He shakes his head, opening the menu and pouring over it with an overabundance of scrutiny. “I really can’t dance. Andrea does that with everyone.”

Tifa opens up her menu as well, but she hardly glances at it. “So you just came up to me that night because I was so irresistible?” she teases.

He glances up to her then glances away, almost burying his head into the itemized entrees. “I—well, yes,” he states.

Tifa loses her smile for a moment, surprised at his serious admittance. She becomes suddenly bashful.

“Oh,” she says. “Um. Thanks.”

“Why are you surprised?”

“I don’t know,” she says, shrugging and shaking her head. “It’s not every day I’m told I’m irresistible from a man who’s danced with Andrea Rhodea.”

Cloud scowls, trying to cover his amusement. “You know what? I’m sure he’d like to take you dancing, if I introduced you.”

Tifa pales. “Oh, no I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“I was just teasing you.”

“Apparently, it’s every girl’s dream to learn how to dance from him.”

“Not mine!”

“Don’t worry, Tifa,” he says, his smile still subdued but his eyes alight. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

She shakes her head. “You are the worst.” She leans forward. “Actually, maybe you could teach me. You already know all his dance moves.”

“Keep fantasizing.”

“I will,” she winks. Cloud gives a lowly scoff.

They have to turn away the waiter two times before they’ve actually looked at the menu long enough to decide on what to eat. In the midst of their conversation, Cloud orders a whiskey, and this inspires Tifa to order a glass of wine. The alcohol warms his icy eyes, the green bordering his irises more pronounced, mixing with the deep blue in the candlelight. She could stare at them for days. He seems interested in her questions and what she has to say, talking about her life in the bar and before it, how she met Yuffie at university, how she became a business owner, meeting Barrett Wallace purely by accidental happenstance.

He is not an extrovert by any stretch of the imagination. He answers her questions when she asks them—how did he get his job? What made him want to be a courier? Did he want to be one? How did he get to Edge? Where did he grow up? He tells her he grew up in a small town, coming to New Midgar out of directionless opportunity. It is easy, he says, to leave a home when you have nothing and no one. He says it without pause, and Tifa is struck deeply with the words, because she knows exactly what he means. He took odd jobs, eventually enlisting in the army for a few drafts. It taught him how to fight, and a courier seemed to be a natural occupation to qualify for when he was discharged.

His humor is dry and sarcastic and blunt, and he never laughs outright, only giving the occasional lowly scoff as he had before, briefly smiling with only his lips. What would he look like with a toothy grin? She wonders when they’re almost finished with their meal. Would it dazzle like the sun, or would it linger and haunt like the moonlight?

They share a decadent dessert—a rich, dark chocolate, five-layered slice of cake—and Tifa’s stomach rolls with fullness and the curling disappointment that the dinner is coming to an end.

Far from the worst date in the history of dates.

In the middle of scooping up a piece of cake, Tifa says, “I was nervous about this.”

“About what?”

“This…date,” she says, swirling her fork around. “It’s hard not to have expectations.”

“Well, at least the food was good,” he says. She looks up at him, and he’s smiling.

“Arguably the best part of the evening,” she smiles.

“It helped with the stretches of silence.”

“And the terrible ambience of the restaurant.”

“The piano playing in the background.”

“The doting waiters.” She glances off to the side towards the textured, dark red walls and the vaulted ceilings, bordered with intricate patterns of crown molding. She sighs with content. “Thank you for brining me here. I think…I needed this.”

They are quiet for a while, and when Tifa glances back to him, he’s watching her. His face gives nothing away, inscrutable underneath the dim, dusky lights. She stares back, attempting to ignore the thundering rumble of her heart.

The waiter comes with their check, and Cloud takes it without a word, placing a handful of gil inside the fold. He sets it to the side and continues looking at her.

“Wanna go somewhere?” he asks.

She doesn’t have to think about it. “Yes.”

He stands and offers her a hand. She takes it and stands as well, their fingers linking. She is warm from the wine and the cake, dizzy from the indulgence, and thinks about how disappointing life can be—and how exquisite it is when it’s not.

* * *

He drives her to a crest over the outskirts of New Midgar. It overlooks a long, rolling stretch of undeveloped land, and the stars are poignant and blinding and unobscured from the electric lights of the big city.

“I drive this route a lot on deliveries,” he tells her, idling the engine. “It’s my favorite view.”

“It’s beautiful,” she says quietly under the din of the motorcycle. “What territory do you travel?”

“Wherever I need to go,” he says. “Keeps it interesting.”

He tells her he travels far and wide. There is never a reason for him to turn down a job because of distance or time. Time is what he has in abundance, never needing to check in with anyone, never needing to be somewhere for someone other than a client. There is a level of independence that comes with it, and the monsters keep from it becoming too monotonous.

“It sounds lonely,” she says under her breath, her thoughts coming out of her without thinking.

He merely shrugs. “Loneliness has never bothered me,” he says. “I’ve never known anything different.”

She glances at the line of his back in front of her. He is a solitary being and a wandering soul, sitting comfortably in her grasp.

“You have friends,” she says.

He scoffs his laugh. “They forced their way into my life. Sometimes, I think they’re purely accidental.”

“So, not all alone, then.”

She sees the side profile of his smile. “No, not alone. They’re there to make sure life doesn’t get boring, either.”

Tifa thinks of Yuffie and laughs. “We have that in common.”

They take a long, winding road back to Seventh Heaven. As the engine hums underneath them, it feels both powerful and ponderous, slow and steady and lazy, like the first few minutes upon waking. She is relaxed as she leans on him, hands hugging the taut ridges of his body, her ear against his back. She hears the heavy beat of his heart when she concentrates, closing her eyes.

She knows the moment they pull up to her home. The motorcycle putters to a quiet stall when he shuts of the engine. She exhales and disentangles herself, swinging her legs off. He toes the kickstand and follows. They make their way up the sidewalk pathway, up the steps to the door.

“Thank you,” Tifa says. “For all of it. The dinner, the drive…”

He crosses his arms over his chest. “I’m glad you came.”

They look at each other for a long moment. Tifa shifts her weight before turning toward the door. “Okay. Goodnight.”

“Uh—” Cloud says, taking a step forward. “I… I know you were drunk last time—”

Tifa frowns. “I wasn’t _drunk,”_ she protests. “Just a little intoxicated.”

“Right,” Cloud says, and his lips turn up into a smirk, the same smirk she saw at the night club. Her neck heats. “Well, no matter what you were, I’d…”

She dares herself to take a step forward. She crosses her arms, too, tilting her head at him.

“You’d what?”

He sighs, glancing off to the side. “I’m not good at this.”

“You were good that night.”

“Anything is good when you’re drunk.”

Tifa narrows her eyes at him and feels the very childish urge to stamp her foot. “I was not drunk!”

At that, he finally cracks a smile that shows his teeth. Ah. The thoughts in her mind scatter. Moonlight. The smile is the kind that’ll haunt. She’s temporarily ruined. There’s nothing more she wants in that moment than to step forward and kiss him, so she does. She steps forward and plants her lips on his slightly opened mouth, tasting teeth and tongue and dark chocolate and whiskey and—it’s better. It’s better than all the indulgence and wine and food. She kisses him until she’s full to bursting, until she can’t breathe. His hands cradle her lower back and hers tangle behind his neck.

“Let’s go out, again,” he says when they break away. They remain close, her hands lingering on his shoulders.

“Okay,” she grins. “When?”

“I get back from my next delivery on Wednesday.”

She kisses him. “That’s the busiest night, here.”

“Then I’ll sit at the bar and buy drinks all night.”

“I’ll save you a seat.”

“…my friends will probably want to come.”

“I’d love to meet them.”

They spend a few more minutes kissing. When Tifa finally breaks away, she gives a breathless laugh.

“Then next time, we should go dancing and you can teach me everything Andrea Rhodea taught you in his parlor.”

“I never should have told you,” he says despairingly, but his lips are still tilted up in a smile.

“I’m so glad you did.”

When they finally say their farewells, the way he says _see you soon_ has her giddy with longing and excitement. She immediately begins to miss him as she closes the door, pressing her back against it with a contented sigh. She glances up to the clock face over the bar, reading 1:52 a.m. The late hour is something Yuffie will be assuredly proud of.

As she goes upstairs to change for bed, the smile won’t leave her. How quickly emotions can change, she thinks, from inner despair and turmoil and questions about herself—so many questions and critiques and _what ifs_ and _why nots_ —all the things that shouldn’t matter that once mattered very much. When she lies in bed and pulls the covers up to her chin, listening to Yuffie’s fitful snores across the room, she finally believes in all of the despair and disappointment with people and with herself, believes in it and loves it and cherishes it because what she feels now is the opposite—and all the more sweeter for it.

She closes her eyes and looks forward to Wednesday.


	2. Party Like It Doesn't Work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate all of you. Just kidding, I love all of you. I received so much great feedback and response for this silly story that it inspired me to continue with the universe. I hope every one who reads this enjoys the rest of it! I'm going to do my best to finish it before work gets too hectic. I can't promise an exact deadline, but I can promise that I will finish this much sooner than later. As an aside, the chapter titles will be from the same song for consistency.
> 
> Happy reading! All ideas, thoughts, love, comments are welcomed and adored.

It’s Wednesday night.

The drinks are flowing, the chatter is loud and humming. Tifa keeps glancing at the entrance. Her neck feels like there’s a tic in it, constantly winding up and moving her head on its own accord.

 _“Someone_ seems anxious,” Jessie says beside her, shaking up a cocktail.

Tifa tries to remain unbothered, but she feels the blush appear on her face, anyway. “Not _anxious,_ just…”

Excited. Eager. Expectant. All the _e_ words. She’s even noticed herself _sighing._

Jessie grins at her. “He’s easy on the eyes. I’d be all hot and bothered, too.”

Tifa laughs. “I’ll try to tone it down.”

Johnny, one of the regulars, sidles up to the bar at the tail end of their conversation. He’s always been the biggest flirt and, perhaps, the least perceptive person Tifa’s ever come across.

“Hot and bothered? You ladies talking ‘bout me?”

“In your dreams, Johnny,” Jessie says, shaking her head while automatically grabbing a pint of beer for him.

“Listen, you don’t have to hide your appreciation for me, my darlings,” he states, taking the beer with a salute. His denim jacket shifts around his torso, which is now bared for the world to see. Tifa felt an obligation to put in a stipulation for him to be fully clothed between the hours of 6 and 9 pm, as children were usually present in the vicinity. So, naturally, at 9:01 pm (or as soon as no children linger) he goes to the bathroom and dresses down. Tifa, Jessie, and Yuffie took bets the first few times it happened. Now, it’s a natural occurrence.

“We’re not,” Tifa deadpans, shooing him away from the counter. He waggles his eyebrows at her like she said something suggestive. 

“Oh, Tifa, love of my life, leaving me with such sweet sorrow…” he exclaims. Tifa winces.

“Please, don’t,” she says.

“And Jessie! You foxy lady, you, always such a tease to old Johnny.”

Jessie snickers. “Foxy, you say? What else?”

Jessie tends to egg him on. Tifa is usually just uncomfortable.

“Love of your life?”

Tifa’s entire body straightens, glancing up to her left. In the spot she’s been attempting to keep vacant stands Cloud. He’s leaning against the bar, wearing similar attire to what he wore on their date, with a dark, relaxed shirt and jeans that are more heavily worn and scuffed. Tifa can’t believe she last saw him only three days prior. It feels like an eternity ago, and her heart squeezes.

Her lips curl up into a grin as she stares at him. “Johnny likes to think so.”

Cloud glances over to where Johnny’s crooning at Jessie. “Looks like I have my work cut out for me.”

“Oh, stiff competition for sure.”

Cloud runs his hand over his shirt. “Do you tend to go for the half-dressed type?”

“Hm. It doesn’t hurt,” Tifa says, shrugging a shoulder and attempting complete and utter seriousness. “I can only strictly date males with washboard abs.”

A smirk dances onto Cloud’s face. He doesn’t answer her statement, and her cheeks begin burning at how… _smug_ he looks.

She clears her throat. “What would you like to drink?”

“Anything you want to make me.”

She gives him a playful gaze. “Alright, Cloud. One mystery drink, coming up.”

He takes the seat before him, watching her work. Once she hands him his newly made drink, she’s called to other patrons along the bar. She senses his eyes on her, and she occasionally glances up to make sure it isn’t her imagination _wanting_ him to be watching her.

To her pleasant satisfacton, it isn’t. Their eyes hook onto each other frequently. A nervous pinch catches in her stomach each time they make eye contact across the space between them.

When she eventually gets a reprieve from orders, she makes her way back to Cloud’s corner.

“I know it’s busy,” she says. “But I’m glad you’re here.”

He smiles a little. “Me, too.”

“You’re not wearing any bandages,” she says.

“Not a lot of monsters on the road today. Made it quicker to get back.”

“In a rush?”

“I couldn’t get here fast enough.”

Tifa hides her blush, busying herself with rinsing and drying a glass.

“What time did you get in?”

“About an hour ago,” he says. At that, Tifa notices his hair seems to look a bit damp underneath the lamplight and realizes he must have showered, cleaned up, and came straightaway.

“Your friends make it?” she asks.

He gestures behind him. “They’re in a booth. I’m sure it won’t take long for them to bother us.”

Tifa smiles at him. “Then I guess I better enjoy our alone time while it lasts.”

“We’ll still spend time together later,” he says. “If you want.”

It must be the way his eyes linger on her when he says it that makes it seem so suggestive. Tifa feels the rush of her blood churning under her skin. He didn’t say anything at all to hint at extracurricular activities, and yet her mind flicks through a barrage of significantly visceral images.

She shrugs, desperately feigning nonchalance. “Sure, if you’re not too tired.”

His lips quirk up in another smirk. She bites her cheek.

“I have good stamina.”

“Hm. I would hate for you to be all show and no substance.”

“All hammer, no nail?”

At that, Tifa can’t help laughing, her embarrassment giving way to the jesting. “It would be a shame with those washboard abs.”

“I try to live up to the hype.”

His monotone delivery has Tifa continuing to laugh. She takes his empty glass to refill it, and she leans on the counter when she hands it back.

“You’ve seen me tipsy,” she says. “How many drinks would it take to get you there?”

“Are you trying to get me drunk, Tifa?”

She smiles. “I would be a terrible bartender if I was _trying_ to get you drunk. I’m making sure I know your limits.”

He gives her a humored look. “It’ll take more than what you have in stock.”

“Is that a challenge?”

He makes a noncommittal noise. “Depends on what the reward is.”

She rolls her eyes at him, good-naturedly. Another regular, Eddie, takes up residence in the seat beside Cloud. He goes and claps Cloud on the shoulder, and both him and Tifa jerk away. Tifa belatedly notices how close they had migrated to each other along the bar and expels a breath.

“Ay, sonny!” Eddie says, gesturing to Cloud’s drink. “Looks like you’ve learned your lesson.”

“Still learning, I think,” he answers, looking at Tifa.

“Just give her your wallet. She’s cleaned most of us out by now,” Eddie laughs.

Tifa huffs, shaking her head, but goes to grab Eddie’s usual drink from the shelf. “I can’t help it if you come here for the company, Eddie.”

“You and Jessie are all a man needs in this town, wouldn’t you agree, sonny?”

Cloud hides a smile into his glass as he takes a drink.

Tifa is whisked away by other customers, though Cloud remains in his spot. Occasionally, the pretty girl with the brown plait comes up to him, leans her elbow on his shoulder and tells him something. Cloud usually seems either amused or annoyed. Tifa is always curious what they converse about, but she’s too busy with other tasks to introduce herself. Once, Tifa catches both the girl and Cloud glancing at her. The girl grins and says something, giving her a wave. Cloud averts his eyes and takes a drink, but there’s a telltale redness on his cheeks that Tifa suspects is not solely from the alcohol.

“Lookie who showed up!” Yuffie exclaims when she eventually makes her presence known behind the bar. She eyes Cloud with a none too obvious grin. Tifa knows this look. She almost pities Cloud for being on the receiving end. “And right before the karaoke begins! Coincidence? I think not.”

Cloud chokes. “What?”

Yuffie points behind him, somewhere towards the booths lining the wall. “Zack tells me you have a great shower voice.”

“Zack doesn’t—”

“Is very supportive over this,” Yuffie says, railroading over his protests. “Aerith also backs the fact—”

“Aerith has never heard me—”

“—and she seems like she has very good sense of taste, so…” Yuffie grins.

Cloud swallows the rest of his new drink in one gulp. He floors Yuffie with a severely hardened stare.

“No.”

Yuffie pouts. “Oh, c’mon Cloud. You know you wanna show off that nice set of pipes.”

“A singer, too?” Tifa says, unable to help herself. Cloud looks at her, his eyebrows heavy over his glance. “You’re certainly full of surprises.”

He huffs. “I’m _not_ singing.”

“Serenade us, Cloud,” Yuffie drawls, spreading her arms out wide. “Your reputation precedes you.”

Cloud glares at his glass. Tifa bites the inside of her lip to keep from grinning at his discomfort.

“No,” he states.

Tifa can’t help herself. She leans against the counter, arms supported on the bar. “Not even for me?”

He looks at her, opens his mouth, and hesitates. The pause before he answers shocks Tifa like a thunderous zap in her stomach. She anticipated his immediate, sulky refusal, but he seems to be _thinking_ about it. His scowl slowly evolves into mischievousness, and Tifa’s hands curl into fists, her nails cutting into her palm. She’s too flattered and satisfied by this simple, playfulness he’s showing her.

“I might be able to handle a private show,” he says, quietly. Yuffie has, conveniently, left them, called by another customer.

Tifa raises a brow. “Oh, really?”

He nods. His eyes dance. “I’m at my best in the shower.”

Her nails don’t feel like they’re just cutting into her palm but cutting into her _everywhere._

“That’s…bold of you.”

“I’ve been inspired, lately.”

Tifa clears her throat, reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ear. “Some inspiration, huh.”

He gives her his haunting smile. She stares at it, feeling like she’s been punched in the jaw. If she wasn’t so dazzled by it, she’d be embarrassed by how dazed he makes her. She shakes her head at him, busying her hands with placing cleaned glasses back onto the shelves.

“I don’t think you’re ready for me in a shower,” she says.

His gaze flutters over her. “Probably not,” he mutters. She’s hears him though she’s not sure if she was meant to, and she huffs a laugh at him.

“Don’t let Yuffie hear you say these things. She’ll never let you live them down,” she says.

“I don’t mind. I mean what I say.”

“Oh, Cloud. You’re ridiculous.”

“You mean charming?”

“Ridiculous…charming…they might be synonymous.”

He smiles again, and she wants to take a picture of it and stare at it forever. She doesn’t even have it in her to chastise herself for such a silly thought.

A man comes up behind Cloud, his hair black and spiky, his eyes nearly as blue and grin carefree and dimpled. He claps his hands on his shoulders, startling Cloud enough to make a few drops of his drink spill out of his glass.

“Cloud! I know you’re enamored with the view, but you promised we’d hang!” the man pouts, shaking Cloud. “Dude, I’ve missed you. You’re gone all the time.”

“Zack, we’re roommates. I see you more than anyone,” Cloud deadpans.

“Not enough!” Zack states dramatically. Tifa smiles at them, Cloud’s face pinching sourly and Zack’s grimacing in agony.

“Cloud, you didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend,” she says.

Cloud grimaces at her. Zack hoots. “You weren’t kidding. Hot _and_ funny? Wow, I didn’t know you had it in you.” He shakes him again, glancing at Tifa. “Did you know you’re all he talks about? Granted, he doesn’t talk a lot, but when he does…”

“Zack…” Cloud grumbles.

“He’s smitten with a capital _S._ I’m sure he dreams about you. If he journaled, he’d write sonnets—”

Cloud shoves him, and Zack stumbles a few steps. He begins laughing. Tifa grins and wonders if this is what she looked like the previous week, trying to silence Yuffie from embarrassing her so destructively.

“Well, he did just suggest to serenade me in the shower…” Tifa says. “Does that count?”

Cloud pales, but his eyes darken and the look he gives her is stricken and betrayed. A sudden spike of guilt floods her immediately, and she mouths _sorry_ at him. Cloud shakes his head at her, and Zack exclaims.

“That’s even better! You’ve turned him into a monster!” He rubs his knuckles on the top of Cloud’s head, mussing up his already untamed hair. “Who even are you?”

Cloud’s eyes narrow and he grunts. “Zack, cut it out.”

“Nope! You’re coming with me. We have to discuss,” he says pointedly, gripping Cloud’s arm and dragging him from the barstool. Cloud is disgruntled as he looks after Tifa, and she only chuckles as they depart.

“I’ll see you later,” she calls.

Zack drags him to the back booth, pushing him in the first and sitting on the end, blocking Cloud’s exit. Cloud seems comically disgruntled, with a pinch in his eyebrows and a frown pulling at his lips like a fish hook.

He looks cute even when angry. Tifa rolls her eyes at herself and eventually becomes busy with the late night rush.

* * *

“I’m Aerith.”

She comes up to the bar in between the full swing of karaoke and the rowdiness of the patrons who have been lingering for the last two hours, deep in their drinks. She perches onto the vacant seat Cloud had been dragged away from previously, looking like an elegant swan with her slender neck and bright, vivacious eyes.

She wears a dress that is a bright pop of pink with a matching bow in her plait. She has the softness of a girl through and through, but the deviousness in her countenance tells a different story. She leans forward. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Tifa.”

Tifa blinks, pausing in making a drink. “Oh. Well, it’s nice to meet you, Aerith. I’ve been meaning to say hello but never got the chance.”

“That’s alright.” She bobs her head back, gesturing toward the dart board. Zack and Cloud look to be in a heated match. Both of their limbs are loose, and Cloud has lost the look of disdain from earlier. “I’m Zack’s girlfriend. He’s been Cloud’s best friend since the dawn of time. We’re all pretty close, and now that Cloud’s finally found someone he wants to date, I figured we’d be best friends, too.” She winks.

Tifa laughs, her stomach curling at the mention of Cloud and dating. “Sure, I’d be up for that.”

“Wonderful,” Aerith says, raising her empty cocktail glass. “Give me a refill of one of those Cosmo-what’s-it’s with the pretty swirl and come join us when you don’t have to man the bar, anymore.”

Tifa takes the glass, smiling. “You got it.”

When 1:30 am rolls around, Zack has taken up a spot on the small, upraised stage with the microphone, crooning a dated pop ballad, his words running together like one long slur. Aerith is clapping enthusiastically while Yuffie has her arm around Aerith’s neck, singing along.

Jessie shoos Tifa out from behind the bar, giving her a smirk and glancing over to Cloud, who resides in one of the cushioned chairs surrounding the area with the dart board and the pinball machines.

“Are you sure?” Tifa asks, stubbornly staying behind the bar.

“Of course I’m sure, Teef. We’re about to kick these barflies out, anyway. Go enjoy your man.”

Blushing, Tifa sighs, doing as she’s told. It doesn’t take a moment for Cloud to notice her making her way toward him, his smile soft and subdued. One arm is lazily supported by the back of the chair. The space between his body and the opposite arm rest beckons to her, and she feels the exhaustion of the evening creep up on her like a sudden tidal wave.

“May I sit here?” she says once she stands in front of him.  
  
He glances over her, uncrossing his legs.   
  
“As long as you sit here until closing.”  
  
“I think I can manage that.”  
  
Even with him sitting on one side of the chair, the space is snug. It is no different than riding on the motorcycle with him, but it _feels_ different being cradled up along his side. She feels his arm against her shoulders, and she is utterly surrounded by him. His aftershave smells wild and electric, like the thick buzzing before a rainstorm. It mixes with the warm tang of alcohol, and this is somehow a fuller intoxication, immersing her entire body in his atmosphere.  
  
“Did you enjoy your evening?” she asks, and it comes out as a whisper.  
  
“It’s better, now,” he answers. “I was looking forward to...this.”  
  
It surprises her how he can be so forward yet so bashful at the same time. He glances away from her toward the stage and Zack, who is now pointing at Aerith and belting out something about love and forever. Aerith places a hand on her heart and dramatically swoons.  
  
“Looking forward to Zack singing his heart out for his beloved?” she teases.  
  
He smiles a little. “No, but that happens to be a bonus.”  
  
Tifa lightly laughs, allowing a hand to rest against his thigh. “I like your friends. They’re fun.”  
  
“They won’t leave you alone.”  
  
“I’m okay with that.”  
  
He hesitates briefly before bringing his other hand off the armrest. He takes her hand off his thigh and busies himself with running his thumb over her knuckles. He avoids looking at her, watching their hands instead.  
  
“I do apologize for Zack, though. He’s a bit...over the top.”  
  
“You mean to say you wouldn’t write sonnets for me?”  
  
She’s immensely pleased when he blushes. “Maybe. I still think serenading in the shower is better.”  
  
She grins. “Is that what you’ve been thinking about all night?”  
  
He shifts, glancing down at her. “Stop reading my mind.”  
  
She runs her fingers along his palm. She likes the friction between her fingertips and the lines of his hand. It’s a light burn, crackling between their knuckles. It’s slow and steady. It’s an otherworldly comfort.  
  
“I know this is only the fourth time we’ve talked to each other but...” she starts. “Well, maybe it’s really the second, because the first two times didn’t really...well, I mean...” she tries. Blushing, it’s her turn to look away from him. “Is it weird if I say I feel like I’ve known you for much longer?”  
  
“It might be weird,” he says, smirking at her fumbling. “But I feel the same.”  
  
This has her glance back up to him. He’s looking at her with an easy intensity, and she feels her heart ricochet from her chest to her brain to her abdomen. She’s not sure how he manages making this sensation ooze into her, plugging up her pores and barricading her from the world. They are suddenly not sitting on a loveseat in her bar. They are in another place, fallen into a tear in the universe and finding a nook all to themselves.  
  
It would make much more sense had Tifa drank something, but she hasn’t, and it’s a bit frightening and surreal if she takes the time to think about it.  
  
“Cloud! It’s your tur—“  
  
She hears the call distantly, as if a film is covering her ears. She doesn’t look up and neither does Cloud. She’s too content staring at him. He doesn’t seem to mind it.  
  
When he leans forward a bit, her throat tightens. “I’ve done nothing for it tonight, but may I kiss you, Tifa?”  
  
She curls her lips beneath her teeth. His eyes flick to them.  
  
“You don’t have to ask,” she breathes.  
  
He inches forward, his lips only just grazing hers before it becomes gentle and soft and indulgent. It’s a flash flood through Tifa’s veins, her heart thunderous in the tunnel of her neck. She brings her other hand to the back of his head, and he deepens the kiss, touching her with his tongue and stealing her breath. His arm on the back of the chair falls down to her low back and he splays his hand on the curve of her hip. Her body hums and his grip strengthens.  
  
Eventually, they break away. Yuffie’s hollers shatter the illusion of them being in a sheltered world of their own, and Tifa’s cheeks redden in record breaking time. She releases Cloud immediately, hands darting to her sides. She presses into the opposite end of the chair.  
  
She’s never been one for public displays of affection. Looking at Cloud, his eyes are glazed over and he seems to be out of sorts, uncomprehending for a brief few seconds longer than her before he comes back to himself. She sees his cheeks turn pink.  
  
Tifa looks up to see Aerith clutching Zack to her, at first looking like a romantic embrace, until further inspection shows her placing her fingers on his lips in an attempt to quiet him. Yuffie, however, has no one to corral her from cat calling.  
  
“Oh my god, could y’all be any _cuter?”_  
  
“I’m sure they co—“ Zack tries, only for Aerith to plant a kiss on him. Her shoulders shake in laughter.  
  
“Shhh, Zack, leave them be!”  
  
“Mm, I’ll only leave them alone if you keep kissing me.”  
  
“Such a needy boy,” she says, kissing him again.

The other patrons don’t seem to rightly care, either dancing with the striated, electronic beats filling up the backdrop, leaning drunkenly against the tables, or looking as if they’ll regret all their decisions of the evening come morning.

Tifa turns back to Cloud. “Sorry, I just—”

He pulls her in closer, silencing her with another kiss. “Don’t be sorry.”

She sighs against him. “I’m not very…publicly affectionate.”

“Would you believe that I’m not, either?”

“You? Really? I’m shocked.”

He scoffs at her sarcasm. “I’m surprised you aren’t.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, you just seem…” he pauses. “I can see you having an easy time showing your emotions.”

She thinks about this a moment, running a finger over his chest. “Maybe I used to. After moving here, I think I kind of…stopped.”

“How come? Too much change?”

“Yes. Change and…the environment was different. It was crowded and busy and fast-paced. I didn’t trust a lot of people. I was on my own, and I was mad at the world.”

“You, mad?”

She mock glares at him. “Hard to believe?”

“Yeah,” he shrugs. “Even when I’ve seen you mad, you weren’t… _mad._ ”

“I’ll pretend that makes sense.”

He smirks a bit, and she kisses him.

“I don’t think I’d want to see you truly mad. I’ve heard you’re a black belt.”

“That’s right. Yuffie can vouch for me, too.”

“I’d like to see you in action. I’ve seen a few girls fight, but none knew Tae Kwon Do.”

She hums. “Maybe I could go on one of your courier trips and we could slay some monsters together. I’m sure it would be romantic.”

He grunts, but it sounds like an amused snort. “Romantic. Sure. Covered in monster guts.”

“My favorite.”

He hesitates for a second. “You’d actually want to go?”

She smiles. “Of course.”

“It’s…dangerous.”

“I’m very capable.”

He hesitates again. “I’m…not sure if it’s the best idea…”

She shakes her head. “If you’re worried about me, don’t be. Once we’re out there, you’ll see for yourself.”

He sighs. “I don’t think it would matter how good you are. I’ll worry.”

He’s so blunt about it. Tifa blinks before she gives him a playful nudge. “Didn’t peg you for being the protective type.”

He becomes diffident. She sees it—he’s a turtle finding refuge in his shell. He glances off to the side, and his discomfort turns into a smirk. Tifa follows his gaze and lands on Aerith and Zack again, who are performing their own very loose interpretation of dancing. Yuffie and Jessie are rousing patrons and seeing them out to the door.

Tifa goes to stand. “I’m going to help them.”

Cloud offers to help, though it’s unnecessary. It only takes a few minutes to empty the bar. Jessie checks out once all of the tables are cleaned and rearranged into their orderly fashion, leaving the five of them.

“Phew, what a night!” Aerith spins and falls back on one of the sofas lining the corner walls. “I hope I remember it tomorrow.”

Tifa laughs. “We’ll remember for you if you don’t.”

“Yeah, babe, how could you forget my glorious singing? My unadulterated confessions of love and adoration?”

“Says you guys. This is obviously when you make up some blackmail to use for later. I’m not reminding you of anything,” Yuffie says.

Aerith swings an arm toward Yuffie, but Yuffie stands several feet away from her. Aerith huffs. “Blackmail. Why blackmail?”

“Because I like to save my gil. It’s the next best mode of buying something.”

“Ha-ha,” Aerith says.

“She’s got a point, you know,” Zack grins. “I know Cloud agrees with me.”

“Shut up, Zack.”

Yuffie snickers. “Like shower singing and closet _dancing_.”

Tifa bites her lip. “Yuffie!”

Cloud groans. “You told her about the dancing?”

“It—I—it wasn’t something I could keep to myself!” Tifa protests, and Cloud lunges at her. She shrieks, doing a terrible attempt at dodging his advance. Once he has her in his clutches, he seems to not know what to do with her except hold her. His hands dig around her hips. Tifa squirms in a half-hearted attempt to relinquish his grip. “Yuffie, you weren’t supposed to say anything!”

She raises her brows. “Looks to me like you’re both pretty comfortable, though.”

“I’d say so,” Zack says.

“Mm, comfy and precious,” Aerith drawls.

Tifa blushes but Cloud doesn’t let her go. Instead, he situates them back on the loveseat. Yuffie snickers again.

“Well, on that note, I believe my work here is done. See you later, kids,” Yuffie salutes. Before she turns to go upstairs, Aerith swings herself off the sofa and stops her.

“Not so fast!” she shouts, reeling her in and giving her a loud smooch on her cheek. Yuffie screams out an _ew_ before grimacing at Tifa and disappearing into the back hallway. “You love me, you little dweeb!” Aerith calls affectionately after Yuffie. Then she saunters over to Zack, wrapping her arms around his neck.

“So I did really enjoy your singing. It filled my heart with daisies.”

“Haven’t you told me daisies are considered the friendship flower? Innocence and purity and all that?”

“Vitally important things, Mr. Fair. If you weren’t my friend, our relationship base would be solely made out of pliable passion.”

Zack frowns. “I think our passion is pretty concrete.”

Aerith smiles up at him. “Oh, but we have both and it is indestructible.”

Tifa turns to Cloud, and her lips graze his ear. “They’re sweet.”

“They’re sickening.”

Giggling, Tifa buries her head in his neck. After a moment’s hesitation, she kisses the skin below his ear. Cloud makes a low noise that travels into Tifa’s spine like a rocket. Her entire body zings like a tuning fork. He turns his head to kiss her back, holding her securely in place. Tifa becomes fluid and boneless in his lap.

“When do I get to see you again?” she asks him.

“I don’t have a delivery for another two days. I could stop by the bar tomorrow.” He pauses. “If that’s—”

“That’s perfect,” she says, quelling his uncertainty. “You could come by every night if you wanted.”

“You’d get tired of me too quickly.”

“As of right now, I feel as though that’s impossible.”

He smiles at her, and her heart wrings into a puddle.

“Alright, ladies and Cloud,” Zack calls out, scooping up Aerith into his arms. “It’s about time we head home.”

Tifa shifts off Cloud, looking over to them. “Do you live far?”

“Not too far. Just across town. Takes about ten minutes or so.”

“We always have guest rooms here, if you need to stay the night,” Tifa says.

“Aw! Thank you!” Aerith cries. “That is the nicest thing, Tifa!”

“And one of these days, we might take you up on your offer,” Zack says, grinning. “But I’m good. I’ll get this darling home safely.”

“My hero,” Aerith says, her voice muffled as she snuggles into Zack’s chest. Zack nods at Cloud.

“See you at the apartment?”

“Yeah, I’ll be right behind you guys.”

Zack departs moments after, leaving them behind in a suddenly quiet reigning of silence. Tifa relishes it before sighing, turning back to Cloud.

“Does Zack also drive a motorcycle?”

“No. Fortunately, he drives something much more practical to get his lady home.”

“Does she call it a chariot?”

“No doubt she does.”

Tifa laughs. They continue sitting on the cushioned seat, watching the other.

“You’re sure you don’t want the guest room?” she asks.

“Maybe I’ll take it if you stay with me,” he says, his eyes gleaming. She feels herself flushing.

“Very presumptive of you to think I’d take you up on that before seeing your dance moves, Cloud.”

He shrugs, his lips twitching. “Couldn’t go without trying.”

Eventually, they stand from their seats, and Tifa walks him to the door. Timidly, he asks for her personal number, and it continues to shock Tifa, with all his seemingly natural swagger and surety, that he is also unassuming, gentle, and deliberate. 

They kiss goodbye, lingering in the threshold of the bar entrance, neither unwilling to let the other go without another kiss, then another.

“Okay, okay, _go_ this time,” Tifa chuckles, lightly shoving him away from her. “We need sleep.”

He steps backwards, making his way to the parking lot off to the side of the building. “Sure, sure. Sleep. I guess.” He pauses. “Goodbye, Tifa.”

“Goodbye, Cloud,” she says, leaning on the doorjamb and staring after him as he leaves. He continues walking backwards, smiling, before finally turning and stepping over the curb onto the pavement of the lot.

Tifa can’t decide what she likes better—the assertive, passionate longing she feels whenever he kisses her, or the genuinely unguarded way he always looks at her. When she closes and locks the door, she thinks she’s lucky that she gets to have them both.


	3. Party Like It Means Well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this really got away from me. For creative purposes, let's just say that Cosmo Canyon is on the same continent as Midgar. I hope no one is offended by my blatant displacement, because technically Costa del Sol is closer to Midgar than Cosmo Canyon. By a lot. ~~It's all for a good cause I swear.~~
> 
> Shout out to my Spotify Discovery Weekly playlist for giving me the inspiration and idea for the song Cloud will use later. Because he is going to serenade Tifa, so help me. I thought it was going to be in this chapter, but there were too many tangential things and emotional growth, I'm sorry. The humor and banter is still threaded through with the emotions, because that's really why this exists.
> 
> Second shout out to the Final Heaven Discord server, because that's a lovely place with even lovelier cloti sluts, like me, so thanks for allowing me into the fold.
> 
> Music inspo in the notes at the bottom for anyone interested.
> 
> Happy reading! I hope you all enjoy this one!

One evening at the bar, Cloud admits to Tifa that he's never been a planner.

Day to day plans he can handle. Plans that only involve his person are much easier for him. For the long haul, he's never been quite adequate. He isn't good at including others—much to the disgruntlement and sullen dramatics from Zack when he tags along with Cloud to the bar—

"Cloud! Communicate! I would have gotten here an hour ago!"

And he isn't good at being thoughtful. He states that he's never really cared about it much before, all these character flaws are now suddenly glaring and evident.

As he sits in his regular seat at her bar, Cloud tells her how strangely simple it has been to place more effort in thoughtfulness and inclusion. He rubs at his jaw.

"It's your fault, you know," he says, staring into his drink.

"My fault?" she asks.

"Yeah. I've been—" he hesitates, and he begins blushing. He sighs. "I've been…thinking of all the things we could do together on your days off."

Her smile grows. "What kinds of things?"

He looks up to her. His blush recedes into a smirk. "You'll be surprised. Not all of my ideas consist of a bedroom."

"Hm. Should I be pleased or disappointed?"

"A forty-sixty mixture?"

She laughs. "What ideas did you have in mind other than the bedroom, Mr. Strife? That's the only way I can judge my disappointment," she says playfully.

He rubs at the back of his neck. It's one of his nervous habits. She leans on the counter, shortening the distance between them.

"Cloud, you know I'll enjoy anything and anywhere you'd like to take me."

He shifts in his seat, as if deflecting his embarrassment somewhere deep inside of him.

"Oh, I forgot I haven't taken you dumpster diving, yet."

"We need to rectify that very soon."

"The underground brawls in Sector Six is another one."

"Have I told you how much I _love_ brutality?"

"You could lay your head on my shoulder while people get ripped apart."

"As long as there's popcorn, it'll be a dream date."

He smiles at her. She smiles back.

"The Gold Saucer."

"Oh, we could be part of that cheesy play!"

"I'll feed you to the dragon king."

"And I'll beat you at the chocobo races."

"You could win me some of those giant stuffed animals."

She plucks his glass away to refill it. "We can watch the fireworks on the gondola."

"Or we could just make out in the gondola instead."

"That would be much more interesting," she says straight faced before laughing. "They might have to kick us out of it."

"We'd steam up the windows, like that one movie."

"Leave handprints that show our passion."

He takes a pull at his drink she places in front of him before saying, "Have you been to Cosmo Canyon?"

"Yes, but not in several years," she says. "Why?"

"I'm going there next week for a delivery. They have a planetarium and a few good restaurants if you'd like to come with me."

Tifa's grin widens. "I would love to go."

"It's a day trip, so you wouldn't have to miss the evening rush."

She places a hand on her hip. "And you said you weren't thoughtful."

"I'm not," he says. "It's you."

She doesn't know how to respond to that.

"Well…" she says. "Um, ninety-ten."

"…what?"

"My pleased to disappointed ratio. It's ninety-ten."

His smile is beatific, and she opens the door of her heart and shoves it inside, securing it in the chambers. "So, ten's for the bedroom?" he asks.

Tifa gives a vague little shrug, called away from him by another patron.

His smile pulses through her veins the rest of the night.

* * *

Tifa leaves Seventh Heaven in the hands of Yuffie for the day, which she hopes isn't the worst idea she's ever had.

"Please, don't burn the place down," she said.

Yuffie had blown air out of her mouth, rolling her eyes. "Oh, my god, Teef, I'm not that irresponsible. Cut me some slack."

Riding on the back of Fenrir, (which Cloud admitted was the name of his motorcycle, (which Tifa has been endlessly teasing him about ever since he told her)), Tifa tries not to think about abandoning her business for a day. Fortunately, Cloud makes it easy for her to forget by simply existing. Straddling his hips and squeezing him as he darts over the terrain is as soothing as it is exhilarating.

He had been every bit the planner before leaving—which completely contradicted what he previously told her—and Tifa was secretly astonished he had been so thorough.

"Did you pack an extra set of clothes?"

"Yes."

"Are you wearing your armor?"

"Of course."

"Your fighting gloves?"

She waggled her fingers at him, hands ensconced in leather.

He nodded. "Good. I've packed some potions, materia, antidotes, and softs just in case we run into any of the more difficult fiends. And make sure you have something junctioned at all times. It's helpful just in case a monster gets the up on us."

"Sure thing, Coach," she saluted.

He had opened his mouth at that, furrowed his brows, then closed his mouth. "I just wanted to make sure we had everything."

Tifa smiled and stepped in front of him. She leaned up and gave him a kiss. "I know. I'm just teasing you with all this _planning_."

"I feel like teasing is becoming your favorite thing to do."

"Oh, it is."

Then she kissed him again.

Now, she rests her chin against his shoulder and watches the changing terrain. The grasses of the plains and the hills and mountains are blurred paint streaks against her eyes. Cloud is a fast driver. He'll occasionally slow on sharper turns or when they come upon a crest, or if he wants to point out one of his checkpoints or rest stops during longer trips.

"I like the mystery of the roads," he tells her when they take a break to stretch their legs. "There's always something new to see. When you think you know it all, it decides to surprise you."

Tifa watches him as he glances down the path, his face holding a subtle contemplativeness. They left early this morning, when the sunrise was only beginning to peak over the horizon. Because of this, it is still morning, the sun suspended low and lazy, and the sky clutching onto the soft, hazy blue of the day's beginning.

She's never seen him in this kind of light. Both being busy with work, they gravitate toward one another in the evening time either in Tifa's bar or going out to dinners. She's only seen him under artificial lights, the stars, or the fluorescence of the big city. This lighting isn't harsh—it is gentle and sculpting. The hard line of his jaw is softened. He seems to be made out of clay, and she wants to press her palm into his cheek, feel it give under her fingers, and pull out all the thoughts behind his eyes.

He turns to look at her after a minute, catching her staring. She doesn't have it in her to look away.

"What's wrong?" he asks.

She smiles a little at the question. It makes her wonder what he sees. Surely her slack-jawed stare isn't _that_ concerning. At the thought, she almost laughs at herself.

"Nothing," she says.

He gives her a bemused look, his lips quirking. He walks up to her.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure." She hesitates in a temporary moment of doubt. "I was just thinking."

He takes another step forward. "What were you thinking?"

"How I've never seen you in this lighting before," she says, trying not to think about how nonsensical that sounds.

He tilts his head at her, frowning. He places his hands on her hips now that he's close enough. She rests her hands on his forearms.

"You're right. I haven't seen you, either."

"I know it's a weird thing to notice. Or think about."

Cloud smiles at her. "It's hard to hide flaws in the natural lighting. What do you think? Regretting your decision, yet?"

She's noticed this about him, too. He throws around self-deprecating remarks. They always seem to be off-handed or apathetic or lightly joking, but Tifa wonders where it comes from. He has no reason to say them, and yet he does, over and over.

Instead of answering, she drags her hands up his arms to the back of his neck. She pulls him down into a kiss. It is supposed to be a soft reprimand for his comment, and it _does_ start that way. But it evolves quickly, Tifa opening her lips and Cloud pushing past them with his tongue, hands encircling her lower back and pressing her against him. He touches a part of her mouth that makes her toes curl, and she's astonished that he can make her feel these things—hitting one nerve ending that awakens a completely different part of her body.

They've been dating for a little over a month. Tifa can safely say she's never felt this strongly for anyone in so short amount of time.

"Mm, Cloud," she breathes. He kisses her jaw and moves to her neck, his teeth grazing her skin. He makes a noise, something between a grunt and a moan, and the vibration scuttles down to her ribs.

"You look good in this lighting," he says against her. "Really good."

"Do I?"

"We aren't far from Kalm if you want to grab a room."

She huffs a strangled laugh. He kisses her mouth, absorbing it and turning it into another moan.

" _Cloud."_

"Tifa."

"You are terrible. We're not even halfway there, yet, and you're already thinking about getting into my pants."

"You weren't thinking about getting into mine?"

They continue to kiss, so her blush is camouflaged and hidden.

"I—it's not that I haven't _thought_ about it—" Or imagined it, or dreamt about it, or fantasized—frankly, it might be labeled either a miracle or a tragedy they haven't undressed one another yet.

His fingers begin to thumb at the edge of her shirt. Distantly, she berates herself for wearing something semi-appropriate for travel. Her mid-riff isn't bared to the elements, and she regrets it endlessly.

Cloud's fingers brush against her stomach before they settle. It takes them a moment to part, their noses bumping. Tifa stares up at him, and she sees the passion there, the tumultuous storm that has become increasingly vibrant over the past weeks.

"It isn't that I don't want to," she whispers. "But…not yet."

He raises his chin and kisses her forehead. "I get it, Tifa. Whatever you want."

She sighs, smiling, and steps away from him. "Let's go."

When they situate themselves back on Fenrir, Tifa notices Cloud adjust a few times before he pushes the kickstand up with his heel.

"Are you okay, Cloud?"

"Uh," he says, stuttering. "Yeah, uh, I'm fine." He clears his throat, and Tifa bites her lip, feeling ripe embarrassment overcome her, and presses her forehead against his back before they take off down the lane.

* * *

It must be too early or too nice of a day for fiends to bother them. They only run into a few plains wolves, which are dispatched quickly by a few precise swings of Cloud's sword. They don't even have to pause or get off his motorcycle for the effort, and while Cloud has shown Tifa his array of swords lingering in the compartment of Fenrir, it is still a sight to behold Cloud unsheathing the gigantic piece of equipment and swinging it with and unrivaled and graceful fluidity.

While the peace of the road is auspicious and prevents them from having to prolong their drive, it is also disappointing.

"Did you bribe the monsters to stay home, today?" she asks him.

"It must have been because we were so prepared," Cloud answers.

"Guess I'll just have to show you how well I fight later."

Cloud grunts softly in answer.

They arrive in Cosmo Canyon just past eleven a.m. It is a rocky, rustic village, but tourism has the population sprawling and growing. The new restaurants, cavern tours, observatory, and various outlook points are enchanting and intriguing features to tempt the masses, and the deep threads of history are enshrined in the Bugenhagen Museum of Historical Wonders at the northern point of town. Tifa hasn't been here in so long that everything seems new to her older eyes. The entrance is bold and welcoming—the edges of the cliffs are eclipsed in a deep crimson, smattered with dusky oranges and deep russet and chocolate browns in the shadows of the rock. The sign hanging on the threshold of the entrance says, _"Welcome to the Valley of the Fallen Star",_ and Tifa's eyes immediately catch on the brilliant eternal flame that blazes in the middle of the town. It is a spectacle, cordoned off with a few metal chains and signs that caution visitors to keep their hands to themselves.

"This place is…" Tifa trails.

"Dusty."

"I was going to say beautiful," Tifa says, almost laughing. "But yes, it is a little dusty."

Cloud leaves Fenrir parked within town, in the lot beside an information booth and visitor center. Tifa snags a map and booklet over the myriad historical markers, and Cloud smiles at how she begins to pour over the nuggets of information inside the folds.

They head to the item shop, first, Cloud carrying the package of amulets and circlets he had to deliver. The item shop owner seems more than pleased at the efficient timing and offers to tip, but Cloud declines and encourages him to write a stellar review, instead.

"The higher the rating on the reviews, the bigger the bonus I end up getting," Cloud explains when they walk out of the store. "It's worth more than a tip."

"You get a lot of stellar reviews, don't you, Cloud?"

He shrugs, but she can tell he's trying not to smile. "I can't help it if I like to speed. Fenrir makes it too easy."

They walk until they hit the main street, weaving their way toward the center of town.

"Want to grab lunch?" he asks.

"Sure," she says, glancing at the stores they pass. One sells memorabilia, t-shirts and mugs in the window, while another sells cave spelunking gear. "What restaurants have you been to?"

"I've been to a couple. There's one I think you'll like. It has a lot of variety."

"Hmm…" Tifa says, opening up one of the brochures with the pictures of the restaurants. She inspects it before she pokes one of the labels. "Is it that one?"

Cloud peers over her shoulder. "How'd you get so good at guessing?"

"It says "variety" in the description."

He scoffs at her answer, amused. "Clever."

She folds up the brochure, putting it away into her small backpack. They are close enough that their arms brush up against each other as they walk, and she gently bumps him with her hip.

"So, what all do you want to do, today?"

"Anything you want."

"You're no help, Strife."

He shrugs. "I don't have any preference as long as I'm with you."

He says things like that too easily, she thinks. "Well…there's the museum. The planetarium… If we have time, maybe we could hike to a few of the outlooks?"

"Sounds good to me," he says.

Their arms brush again, and so do their fingers. Their pinkies hook onto each other first, then their palms slide until the rest of their fingers interlace. Both of their hands are encased in leather, and their skin barely touches, but it's warm and comforting all the same.

They make their way leisurely to the Starlet Pub, unhurried and lax, with Cloud occasionally pointing out a shop or two that he's visited and enjoyed. One is the Tiger Lily Arms Shop where he spends most of his free time on visits, along with the materia shop across the street. Tifa isn't surprised by Cloud's affinity for weapons and equipment enhancements, but it's a delight to hear him talk about things he's passionate about.

When they arrive at the Starlet Pub, it is interspersed with customers during the lunch rush, but they are able to claim a table on the balcony outside. It overlooks one of the cliff drop-offs, and there is a faint rush of the river in the valley below. Trees are rooted into the cliff faces like freckles, bursts of green against the vibrant scarlet streaks and layers of sandy sediment. Tifa breathes out a long exhale, unable to stop staring and completely enamored with the view.

"This is lovely," she says.

"Beautiful," Cloud agrees. After a few minutes of gazing, Tifa turns back to look at him and the menu, but she pauses when she realizes he's staring at her. He gives her a little smile, and her cheeks burn.

"You've got to stop doing that," she says quietly, picking up the menu.

"Stop doing what?"

"Oh, you know."

"…looking at you?"

She gives a little huff, shaking her head. It must just be Cloud, his eyes like oceanic lasers, and how he disregarded the scenery's beauty when compared to what he thought of her own.

That's what's making her so flustered. She never gets _this_ flustered.

Not sure how to answer, Tifa busies herself with picking out an item from the menu. Eventually, Cloud follows her lead, though she still spies a smug smile on his face.

They spend lunch in relative quiet, both settling into their company. It's a strange kind of comfort within the silence between them. Tifa doesn't feel a pressure to fill it, and she wonders if it's in part because of Cloud's natural demeanor. He isn't loud, so she's never felt the need to stuff the quiet with words. He always seems content either way, and Tifa has become immensely fond of it.

When they finish, they head to the Bugenhagen Museum of Historical Wonders. Tifa finds herself reeled into the audio summarizations of the past, of Seto's lion tribe and the old magic of the Ancients. Paintings and pictures of paintings from hundreds of years ago are mounted behind protected glass cases, blurbs of information beside them describing what each picture depicts and represents. Several are different renditions of battle, brave and hardened lion warriors in ferocious battle with ominous, abstract personifications of evil. Most label them as the Gi, but as they make their way through the deeper works of the museum, the portraits change to artifacts and pottery collected from excavation, utensils, and life-sized dioramas of huts that used to be the main living areas of the tribe of Cosmo Canyon from years past. The Gi seem to fade from existence with the lack of information about them, shrouded in a veil of mystery.

Cloud seems to be interested about the war and the seemingly endless years of battle against the ambushes and attempts to claim Cosmo Canyon land.

"It's a shame they don't have more recorded information," he says in between exhibits.

"I thought so, too. I have a lot of questions."

Cloud quirks his lips at her. "I didn't expect you to be so interested in history."

She shrugs. "I didn't, either. I think I forgot how much I loved stuff like this. After becoming owner of Seventh Heaven, the job took over everything."

Cloud hums. "Yeah. I understand the feeling. What did you study at university?"

"Oh, I was a business major, but I minored in anthropology and music."

"Double minor?"

"Yes. I couldn't decide," she says, smiling a bit sheepishly. "Anthropology was more for interest. Music was for indulgence."

"Do you play anything?"

"Piano. I've played for years, and this was an excuse to continue."

They walk along, cursorily glancing around the last few exhibits. Nothing seems to be as interesting as the previous rooms before, and they drift around the last hallway before the exit. They've remained close to one another throughout the tour, and Tifa notices every single time Cloud's arm hits hers. _Twenty-seven?_ she thinks, her mental tally persistent and automatic, when his elbow brushes against her waist. Her body is increasingly hypersensitive to his proximity. She has a mind to think she can feel the fine hairs of his forearm.

"You needed an excuse?" he asks, foregoing looking at their surroundings. He stares at her, and she turns so she can stare back.

She takes a deep breath and concentrates on the color of his eyes. They pull out her words like a tug on a string. "After my father passed away, it was easy to make his death an excuse to stop. Signing up for classes at school forced me to give up the excuse. I—" she pauses, and while it has been a very long time since her father's passing, it does not make the next words she says any easier to come forth. "I used to play for him. I missed him. Playing was both…grieving him and honoring him. Anyway, um…do you want to go somewhere else?" she says, trying to veer the conversation while glancing around them at the glass cases. There are figurines of more recent tribal members and information about the flora and fauna in the area. Tifa suddenly doesn't care about any of it.

Cloud gently touches her lower back. He leans in so his mouth is close to her ear. "Yeah. Let's go somewhere else," he whispers. He reaches out and intertwines their hands, pulling her toward the exit and out into the main hub of Cosmo Canyon.

Cloud initiates nothing. He doesn't say anything, and he doesn't ask her any other questions. After a few minutes, Tifa bites her lip. The silence, for once, begins suffocating her. "I'm sorry, I just—"

"No," he interrupts her, shaking his head. "Never feel sorry for that, Tifa."

She allows herself to lean against his side and grasp his arm with her other hand. They pass few people, and she gazes out toward the jagged cliffs surrounding them, looking like bloody teeth pointed up to the sky. Thinking of family always puts her in a disquietude, and it always makes Yuffie or Jessie uncomfortable when any of them mention it in passing. She's made it a point to never talk about her father, being more for her sanity than for _wanting_ to talk about him. Still, it's a bit startling to realize how simple it was for the conversation to flow in that direction. Tifa hadn't been afraid to mention him to Cloud, nor had she worried over his reaction. No second thoughts entered her mind, only the sensation of her throat clinging onto the words, unwilling to let the rest of them go. Perhaps it is because Cloud knows what it's like. He's never explicitly talked about his family, either, but he's on his own, just like she's been. There is a kinship that gnaws at her stomach, and the warmth of his side seeps past her shirt and into her limbs.

She doesn't quite pay attention where he leads her, content with being pulled along over ramps and rocky steps, winding up and along the cliff faces until they come to a smooth, rounded building. It seems like an amphitheater with its size, and Tifa spies the title on the sign off to the right. It says _Cosmo Canyon Planetarium and Observatory._

"I've been here once," Cloud tells her, opening the door for her as they walk in. "The presentation is…magnificent. The views are out of this world." He pauses, and she sees him wince. "Uh, sorry."

Tifa chuckles a little, and her mood is settling like sand on the bottom of the ocean. "I didn't realize you were punny."

"I didn't think I was."

"Oh, I'm sure it's all Zack's fault."

"Completely. Living with him is bound to create some bad habits."

"I don't think it's a bad habit. I think it's cute."

"Cute?"

Tifa gives a shrug. "Yeah. Cute."

Cloud smiles a little, and their hands squeeze tighter together, meshing like two puzzle pieces.

They end up catching a matinee called _The Depth of the Cosmos._ The seats recline to give them a completely immersive view of space and stars and millions of miles of stardust and planets and asteroid belts. Half the time, Tifa feels like she's floating, the stars so close she thinks she can reach out and touch them with her fingers. By the finale, they choose to remain sitting, with the view of the galaxy languidly swiveling around them. The air seems thinner, and Tifa feels the rush of falling head first into the vast, unending playground of space. She grips Cloud's hand, and he raises it up to his lips to leave a lingering press of a kiss on her knuckles.

"You're right," she whispers, after a moment. "It's out of this world."

Cloud's laugh comes out as a deep rumble, and she can feel it in her wrist. They bask in the atmosphere a while longer before Cloud breaks the silence.

"I didn't know my dad. You're lucky you got to know yours, Tifa."

She stills for a moment, then she turns her head to look at him. He's staring at the stars.

"It was always him and I. My mom died when I was too young to remember."

"I guess we both missed out a bit growing up, but I think we turned out okay."

She scoots closer to him before she allows her head to rest on his shoulder. "What was your mom like?"

She feels his chest rise and fall in a deep breath, and he tells her so many things. Her name was Claudia. She would always bake chocolate chip cookies on Sunday mornings, filling up the house with the smell of warm oven heat and sugar. She read him fairytales when he was small enough to sit in her lap. She'd fuss over his hair, trying to tame if for all she was worth until she accepted the unruliness. She encouraged his interests, as fleeting and childish as they had been. She didn't force him to be anything other than who he was, and while that had been a great blessing, Cloud admits that he had difficulty deciding who he wanted to be and if he even cared about who he was.

She made him deeply happy. A shoe stuck in the mud kind of happy—the pull an unrelenting vacuum on his skin and his mind and soul. He didn't realize this until she became sick, the speed of it as unrelenting as her love. It zapped her energy, and it ate at her once robust bones like a nest of insects, whittling her body into fine edges and points until she was a leftover husk.

"I joined the army to find who she saw in me. That's what I told myself. I was only running away from my sadness and grief, but I like to think she'd be proud of me."

Tifa curls up closer against him, watching a meteor shower light up in the distance, crawling it's way toward them.

"She would be. Don't doubt that for a moment."

"That's easy to say and harder to believe."

"Did you find yourself in the army?" she asks softly.

"Sometimes, I thought I did. When I discharged, I thought I was on my way there."

To her surprise, Cloud chuckles briefly. It is just a breath between them.

"When I met you at the bar," he continues. "It was her birthday. That's why I was there. Zack and Aerith knew I needed a distraction that day. They meant well. I let them drag me to New Midgar instead of driving out to the plains and killing a whole population of monsters." He pauses and he shifts, gently peeling off her leather glove and tracing her palm. She watches the lines he makes before she takes off his glove, too.

It's better like this without layers. She can feel the texture of his callouses against hers, can almost touch the years his hands have seen, the vibration of history lingering in the story they create.

"When I was younger, I believed in those things everyone believes in. People's souls becoming stars when they pass, or guardian angels, or living in the infinite beyond, waiting for us to join them. She told me she would watch over me before she died, but after she did...I wasn't one to believe. Her death made me...lose sight of things." He glances down to her, and the light of the stars rival the blooming color in his eyes. "Then I met you, and I started wondering again."

Tifa's throat balls up like a wet wad of paper, crinkled and thick. She has a hard time swallowing past it. She wants to say something in response. Something soft and meaningful. But all she can seem to do is stare at him. When her heart feels like it will expand to the point of bursting, she shifts her view to their hands, trying to memorize the way they look entangled together under the starlight.

The overhead lights come back on after another minute, and Tifa's bravery to look up to him has strangely vanished. A boy has never made her so nervous. Oh, she shouldn't think _boy_. A _man_. A _man_ has never made her so nervous.

He must sense it. "Tifa? Are you okay?"

His question makes the lump in her throat disappear. "Yes! Of course I am." She glances up to see him frowning. She leans forward to kiss him, swiftly and without an ounce of heat to back it up, because if she allows that,she's certain they wouldn't leave this room. She'd lose her small thread of sanity. Her mind is a loose spool of tossed thread, unraveling too quickly for her to catch up.

She sits back from him and smiles, but she feels the force behind it. His frown deepens.

"Let's, uh—" she says, mind rummaging through ideas. "Let's go find an outlook. I think I read there's one off the trail from the observatory."

Cloud nods silently, following behind her as they leave the auditorium.

* * *

Their hike up the trail is a quiet one, and the view they come upon would have stolen Tifa's breath had she not been so absorbed in her own thoughts, regretting her reaction before. She's ruined something. She can feel it in the space between them. The view wouldn't be so dreary had she just said _something_ instead of fumbling and feeling like a deer caught in the headlights of Fenrir. She's too used to him flirting and his suggestive quips, not declaring heartfelt statements that make her want to melt into the floor.

Cloud is either too nice or too uncertain to say anything about it. He simply lets her have her silence and doesn't crowd her. She's simultaneously grateful and annoyed by it. Maybe it doesn't even bother him. Maybe he wasn't expecting her to say anything. Maybe she's overthinking it.

But that's the thing about it. She's never had to overthink in relationships. Most of the ones she had were fine. They were fun. They were sprinkled with enough passion and caring and chemistry, and Tifa always knew when her dalliances were closing in on their expiration dates. But then Rude happened, and it was an acute blindside. She hadn't questioned herself or her judgment with such laser focus until he came along. Now, Cloud stands beside her, and it's as if he fell out of the sky right when she needed him. He's thoughtful, and he's funny, and he's sarcastic and sweet, and he's strong, and he's been vulnerable with her, and he is flirtatious and looks at her like he'll be here forever, and that's…too good to be true.

She must find his red flags. Isn't being too perfect a red flag in itself? There has to be something wrong with him. Something she doesn't like that's disgusting and vile and demeaning. Right?

Then again, maybe she _is_ overthinking it.

She sighs and stares out at the wilderness. The trees grow over each other, the grass tall, thin, and long enough to brush the backs of her knees. The pillowy clouds block out the harsh afternoon sunlight for a brief respite, allowing a cool breeze to weave its way around them.

"I'm sorry," he says after several minutes. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

Her stomach drops. "No. No, you didn't."

"I think I did."

"I—" she halts herself. Her heart begins beating too quickly for what's happening. "No, I wasn't uncomfortable. I was everything but uncomfortable, Cloud."

He glances sideways at her. "Then why did you…act like you did?"

The words niggle behind her chest. She feels them climbing around her insides like children on a jungle gym. She closes her eyes and exhales sharply.

"I'm…afraid of you."

The words are an odd flavor as they spill over her tongue.

He turns fully to face her. His eyebrows furrow. "What?"

"I mean, I'm…afraid of how _easy_ this is. We've only been dating a month. You shouldn't feel this way to me."

He crosses his arms over his chest. "What way do I feel to you?"

Tifa feels the blood pooling in her cheeks. He feels like a shelter. When she's working and he's on the roads, she daydreams about him being there. When she lies in bed, they send phone messages constantly. Some nights, she hardly gets any sleep because he's on her mind. She's becoming possessed. She's sinking into a very warm pit of swamp sludge, destined to never pull herself out.

"I just like you…a lot," she ends up saying, berating herself for how lame her answer sounds. "That's all."

He gives her one of his smirks. "I just like you, too."

She opens her mouth then closes it, feeling silly, but also feeling like he's missing the gravity of her sentiment. "I mean I _really_ like you."

"So do I."

"Oh, Cloud, stop teasing."

"I'm not meaning to tease, Tifa. I do really like you."

"I'm waiting to find out what I really _don't_ like about you."

Cloud raises a bemused brow. "It'd be disappointing if you decided you ended up really not liking me."

"Yes. It would. That's why I'm afraid."

Cloud's face softens in sudden acknowledgment, and his smirk fades into a careful line. He steps toward her and places his hands on her hips.

"How about this? What if we get a room at the Shildra Inn, have dinner, and spend the evening trying to decide if there's something we don't like about each other?" He smiles at the look that begins creeping on her face. If she can guess, she probably looks torn between intense longing and utter anxiety.

"I'm not asking you to sleep with me yet, Tifa."

"Right, because that was my biggest worry."

Cloud hums, leaning forward and kissing her. She raises her hands to curl around the back of his neck. His chest presses against hers, and the solid wall of him is a pleasure. He is a shelter, she thinks again, the thought dissipating like a ghost in the back of her mind.

"If we do this, I'll have to call Yuffie and tell her to have Wedge cover my shift. And make sure she feels comfortable with managing everyone. And make sure everyone knows that I—"

"Tifa, she'll be fine once you call her. She probably won't be as surprised as you think."

"Why? We're supposed to be home by…" she trails. "Wait, what did you tell her?"

Cloud shakes his head, going in to kiss her again. Tifa leans back, narrowing her eyes at him. "Cloud?"

He looks down to the grass, ducking his head. "I told her I hoped we would stay for longer. That's all."

Her mouth parts. "You had this planned all along."

"No, I didn't. I only hoped you'd want to stay with me."

"Cloud Strife! You could have asked me in the first place!"

He gives her a look. "Tifa, you can't stay away from your bar longer than a few hours at a time. That's how you are."

She opens her mouth about to object, when he silences her with another kiss, eating her words.

"That's—not—true," she breathes, her hands grasping at his shirt. "Just because…Barrett…managing…"

"One night," Cloud huffs between kisses. "That's all. Then you can kick my ass later."

She laughs, curling herself around him. "I should kick your ass right now. Maybe this is what I really don't like—"

He interrupts her by dipping his tongue further into her mouth. One of his hands roams and squeezes her butt in retaliation. She moans into him.

They pull and press against each other until the sun begins setting. Only then, when Tifa has no other option but to call Yuffie, does she pick up her phone and give in to staying the night. When Yuffie picks up, she laughs loudly in the phone and says, "Yeah. I knew it, you lusty fiends. Don't worry, I've already called back up."

"What? Yuffie—"

"Re _lax_. I'm actually going to teach Aerith how to mix drinks. It'll be so fun! Anyway, bye! Oh, and be safe. You know. _Safe?_ Okay, love you, bye!"

"Yuffie—" Tifa tries, but Yuffie's already hung up on her. She shakes her head, but she rolls her eyes and smiles.

"I didn't realize I was so obsessed with work until today," Tifa says as they make their way back down the path. Shildra Inn is at the bottom of the trail and built on an uplifted outcrop of land, capitalizing on the canyon views. She sighs. "You're right. One day won't kill me."

"We all need a break every one in a while," Cloud says, though he has the decency to look abashed. "Thanks for staying."

"I didn't have much of a choice, did I?"

"I wouldn't say no choice. More like highly encouraged pressure to say yes."

"You're a sneak," she says, taking his hand the rest of the way.

They book their room at the Inn on the fourth floor, containing one large bed and a balcony overlooking the river below the canyon. Off to the right, they can spy the eternal flame glowing brightly against the blackness of the shrouded evening. They order toiletries and decide on dining with room service for dinner, neither interested in another outing when they are suddenly in the privacy of their own room. It's a cozy cabin, filled with lantern lighting, walnut floors and a matching desk and bedside table. The walls are painted a light morning gray, and the bathroom is patterned in tile of the same color.

Tifa opens her bag, already knowing what awaits inside. She packed an extra shirt, shorts, gloves, armor, but nothing else. "I didn't pack anything to sleep in."

Cloud plucks his pack from the ground and goes to hand it to her. "Actually, I think Yuffie packed some things in mine." He glances away from her. "Just in case."

Blinking, Tifa takes the pack, unzipping it and delicately moving his clothes to the side. When she grips her night shirt, she nearly dies of embarrassment.

"I'm going to kill her," Tifa mutters under her breath, pulling out a piece of lingerie Tifa doesn't think she's worn in two years. She had bought it on a whim, both her and Yuffie laughing hysterically in the store dressing rooms.

Cloud looks over to her in time to see her holding up the offending piece of navy, see-through lace. He stares at it for a beat too long.

"If you decide to wear that tonight, forget about what I said."

She lowers the lingerie into her lap. "What?"

"We won't talk. I'd fuck you until morning."

Tifa blushes. His words are a blunt edge of a knife. Her stomach twists at the thought of it.

_No._ She steels herself. She just needs to be sure her feelings are valid. And that he's not an impostor.

"I packed a few shirts. You can wear one of mine."

Tifa puts the lingerie aside, going back to Cloud's bag. She pulls out a soft, relaxed green cotton t-shirt. It will probably reach the tops of her thighs and cover her bottom if she doesn't move excessively. She thinks she could wear her clean shorts underneath it. She glances over to the massive bed, imagining wearing Cloud's shirt and her underwear and nothing else, lying beside him, whispering into the descending night. It would be effortless for his hand to slip underneath the lip of the shirt, grazing over her hip and her waist. Glancing over the underside of her breast. She bites the meat of her lip.

This was such a terrible idea, she thinks. Such a terrible, amazing idea.

* * *

Once dinner is ordered, Tifa announces that she's going to take a shower. It takes her only a few minutes, because she has a strange, thrilling anxiety that Cloud will appear in the doorway and join her. She's simultaneously happy and somber when he doesn't. She wraps her hair in a high bun, changes into Cloud's shirt, and wears her shorts for the rest of the evening. She makes an agreement with herself that she'll take them off when they go to bed.

When she re-enters their room, she finds that Cloud's moved the coffee table to a more spacious area of the room, with two pillows placed around it for cushion, and their dinners covered with metal plate covers to keep them warm. One small lantern is on the edge of the table, coloring it all in a soft shade of yellow. An unopened bottle of wine stands in the middle of it like a centerpiece.

Cloud is not in the room, so Tifa allows herself a moment to curl her arms around her body and fold over for a moment. The gesture is too much. It's romantic. Who _is_ he?

She grabs her phone from the bedside table and shoots Yuffie a message.

_Yuffie, I think I'm dying._

A ping comes back not thirty seconds later.

_That good, huh?_

Tifa palms her face.

_Not that! He's just generally really great._

_That's a bad thing?_

Tifa pinches the bridge of her nose.

_It's just suspicious, you know?_

_Yeah. What if he's a murderer?_

Tifa suppresses a grin.

_What if he tries to kill me, tonight?_

_Death by seduction? There are worst ways to go._

_True._

_Even if he is stupidly amazing right now and ends up being a complete psycho, enjoy it while you can. That's an order!_

_Yeah. Right. Thanks, Yuff._

_You got it._

_Also, I'm going to tell him about…that thing._

_What thing?_ Then a second later, _Oh, shit! THAT thing? Why?_

_We've made an agreement to tell each other the awful things we've done._

… _Are y'all high or just kinky as fuck._

An abrupt, strangled laugh leaves Tifa.

_This is my way of ensuring he's not a fraud._

_Oh, Tifa. I get it. Trust issues suck._

_Yeah. Also NO THANKS for the lingerie._

_I knew you'd love it._

_And thanks for taking care of the bar tonight._

_Remember when you took care of me when my dad kicked me out and I was homeless and had no one else? This is me repaying you. So. This is the only time, honestly._

_Noted._

Tifa hears the door unlatch and open, and she glances behind her. Cloud is in the doorway in his other t-shirt and sweatpants, carrying a bucket of ice. He looks up at her as he closes the door.

She smiles. "Hey."

His eyes snag on the shirt. "Hi."

She spreads her arms out. "What do you think? I call it my, just-out-of-the-shower-and-ready-for-bed, look."

He comes forward and sets the ice down in the entryway. Then he goes to kiss her, his lips pressing against her forcefully. He wraps his hands underneath her bottom and lifts her up. She squeaks, wrapping herself around him to keep from toppling over. He pads over to the bed and drops them both forward, letting them bounce on the mattress.

"Goddamn it," he grumbles, pushing his body into her. His weight is like the best kind of avalanche on her body, drenching her in muscles and cotton. "Might be hotter than the lingerie."

She almost laughs into him. "I don't think so. My hair is still wet."

"Don't say wet."

"Oh. Sorry."

They kiss for a while, sinking into the bed like teeth into nougat. Her legs are still wrapped around him, and his forearms trap her beneath the cage of his body.

They pause after an eternity, both catching their breath. He stares at her, his eyes dark blue and green and black, his lips beautifully swollen.

"This was a bad idea, wasn't it?" he asks her.

"I'm just glad I decided to wear my shorts."

He pushes his forehead onto hers before taking a deep breath. Then he rolls over to the side and sighs loudly, gazing at the ceiling.

"Okay," he says eventually, his voice gravelly and rough, as though he's enduring something. "Let's talk."

Tifa rubs at her face, feeling her heart pulsating in her abdomen. "What about dinner? You went through so much trouble…"

"I'm not hungry for food."

She swallows. "Me, either. The set up was very sweet, though."

He simply shrugs. "It's you, remember."

It sounds like he's saying it's her fault for what he's been doing. Her lips lift in a smile.

She turns her head to stare at his profile, from his hair to his adam's apple. She sees the beginnings of stubble shadow along his jaw.

"Thank you for respecting…this."

He looks back to her. "Whatever you need."

She presses her lips together. "Okay. Let's talk. Tell me the worst things you've ever done."

He's quiet for a while. "There are several "worst things", Tifa."

She turns on her side to face them. "Then tell me all of them. I'll tell you mine."

He scoffs. "I can't imagine you doing awful things."

"I have. Everyone has." She thinks for a moment. "Let's start small, first."

"Alright. Uh…" he hesitates. "I used to be a bully. Kids made fun of me for not having a dad, so I'd beat them up. Or, I tried to beat them up. I was usually the one to end up with the worst of it."

Tifa imagines a small Cloud, angry and violent and mean.

"I hated my dad, sometimes," she admits. "I didn't know how hard it was for him to raise a daughter on his own. I could be…the brattiest, most vile pre-teen. I wish I could go back and do a lot of things differently."

He turns his body towards her, too, and they are closely positioned. His eyes dart up to her bun, then down to her neck.

"I wish I had known you when I was younger."

Tifa smiles. "I don't think you do."

"No. Really. I wonder if it would have helped me."

Tifa thinks about it, her brattiness clashing against Cloud's anger. Would it have been like a knife against honing steel, sharpening their dulled edges? Would they have excavated the goodness in each other? "I wonder how different that would have been."

"I probably wouldn't have been so mean."

"You don't know that. You might have hated me, too."

"I doubt it."

She ponders for a while. "I snuck out of my house when I was a teenager. I met some of my neighborhood friends and drank beer."

"That's not a bad thing. That's more like a rite of passage."

"At the time, it was bad for me. It made me feel terrible after."

"I totaled my mom's car when I was going home drunk from a party. I spent a year paying it off."

"I used a boy in my hometown to buy me jewelry." Tifa looks away from him. "I didn't even like him."

"Did you keep the jewelry?"

Tifa bites her lip. "No…I gave it back."

"Tifa, it sounds exactly as I thought. Your conscience is massive."

She huffs, feeling a pool of dread filling her stomach. "Well, don't say that, yet. We haven't gotten to the _true_ worst things we've ever done."

Cloud raises his brows. "Should I prepare myself?"

She rolls onto her belly, glancing over to the prepared coffee table and the wine bottle that has been left as yet untouched. She sits up and climbs off the bed.

"I'm not sure if you do, but I certainly need to. I didn't realize how much of a guilt trip this would turn out to be."

Cloud laughs at her. "It's all about describing how horrible we are. Did you think this was going to be fun?"

"No, but…" she trails. "Maybe. I don't know. I just didn't want to like you so much, I guess."

At that, he gets up to follow her. "Why's that?"

"Because you're perfect," she says, trying not to think to hard about what she's saying. She busies herself with twisting out the cork in the bottle and grabs one of the glasses on the table. She feels Cloud's heavy stare on her back. "You want some?"

He thinks about it. "Actually, no, I'm fine."

More for her then, she thinks, pouring a generous amount. She glances at the bed and the luxurious white bedspread then back to the dark, insidious red of the wine. She goes to take a seat on the cushions Cloud left around the table, and he sits beside her.

"I'm far from perfect, Teef."

"Just because you beat up some kids and totaled a car doesn't mean you're not…" she hesitates, unsure of where she was going with the statement. Actually, she does know. She wanted to say, _Doesn't mean you're not perfect. Doesn't mean you're not the one for me._ She takes a deeper sip of her wine. It is pure insanity.

"I lied on my application for college," she blurts.

Cloud stares at her quietly, and it makes her nervous.

"Do you think it helped?" he asks.

"I…think it did. I got in, so I _like_ to think it wasn't for nothing."

"What did you lie about?"

"Extracurriculars. My personal statement. I talked about my father raising me on his own, but a lot of it was…made up."

"You probably didn't need it in the first place."

"You're not supposed to stick up for me, Cloud."

"Oh, right, so you _want_ me to decide I really don't like you. I'll keep that in mind."

She mutters into her wine. "Your turn. Fess up, Strife."

"I…" he pauses. "You know, I think this one might make you truly…dislike me."

She shifts on her cushion, turning to face him completely. A whiff of nerves punch her. "Okay. Tell me."

He averts his eyes off to the side. "Uh…while I was in Wutai during the war, there were a lot of bombings. Our bunker was under fire, and a bomb had gone off overhead. Our site was going to collapse with us inside, so we were all scrambling to get out in time. The guy in front of me fell. I could have grabbed him and pulled him up, but I didn't. All I was thinking about was escaping. The building collapsed moments later, and—" Cloud halts himself. His jaw buckles, and he closes his eyes. "I was a coward. Half the reason I joined was to find courage, and I couldn't even do that."

Tifa's mouth parts. "Cloud, that isn't true. You shouldn't beat yourself up about that. What about the other soldiers? Did anyone blame you?"

"Most of the soldiers behind me were crushed, so I don't know. At the time, it was just another unfortunate situation, but I remember it, and I know what I could have done."

"You can't dwell on things like that, Cloud. It'll eat at you until there's nothing left."

"I try not to, but it was an awful thing that I did. I pushed it down until I didn't feel it, anymore."

He runs a hand down the back of his neck, and Tifa scoots closer to him. She places a careful hand on his knee. "I…" she sighs. "This was a stupid idea. I'm sorry. Nothing that you can tell me will change anything. I believe in you. I care about you. Everything else doesn't matter, and it shouldn't matter."

Cloud looks up at her and tries to smile. "I've killed other soldiers, too. I've killed several of them. Not just the one who fell. I know I could kill someone, now, if I needed to, and I don't have to care about it if I don't want to. It's…a conditioning process. So, there's that," he says, and while his tone is nonchalant, his eyes are webbed with regret. He reaches up to touch her face, and she doesn't shy away from it. "Your turn."

She clears her throat. How can knowing the deepest, darkest parts of another human being, she wonders, make them _better?_ She's in worse trouble than before. She takes another long drink from her glass.

"Remember five years ago, when Shinra was still huge and important and one of their reactors blew up?"

Cloud nods slowly. "Yeah, I remember."

"And there was a rebel group that was very pro-earth and anti-mako?"

"Yes…"

She takes a deep breath. "I was in that group."

Cloud's eyes widen at her. "You were not."

She finishes her glass, and she waits for the alcohol to hit her in between the eyes. "I was in the group that blew up the reactor."

"You were _not._ Holy shit, Tifa."

"I know. It was reckless and stupid, and I did so many things that I'm ashamed of. I used Shinra's son to get layouts of the headquarters. I got fake IDs. I became an intern so I could monitor their proceedings." She leans against the coffee table, hiding her face. "My…my father died of mako poisoning. He worked for a reactor, and I absolutely hated Shinra for it. I didn't care that the planet was dying. I didn't care that they used the earth's life-force for energy. All I wanted was to avenge my father, and I did…all of that…to do it." She shakes her head. "In the end, it didn't make me feel any better. My father was still dead. I was still _alone._ Shinra ended up getting what they deserved in the end, but…" She cuts herself off. "I guess I'm just a bit nuts."

Cloud's quiet for an achingly long amount of time. Tifa dares to peek up at him, only to see him smiling at her.

"When you told me you were angry at the world, I did not expect this to be part of it."

She expels a breath, and she wants to laugh it away, but she can't. "When I get mad, I get _mad_."

He leans forward to lift up her chin. He kisses her.

"Tifa, is that the worst thing you've ever done?"

"…that mako reactor killed dozens of people, if not more. I used people to get what I wanted. I conned people. I stole." It sounds utterly despicable when she says it out loud. "Yeah. It's the worst thing I've ever done."

He kisses her again, and this time he lifts her into his lap. She must straddle his sides to fit securely against him, and this reaction from him sends her blood hurtling through every capillary. He fills her up with fire. She is combusting, the flames licking her lungs.

"Good," he rumbles against her. "Because you're perfect to me."

She's never had a guy say that to her, either. At least, never one who didn't want anything more than kissing. Or wanting to bed her. Or one who said that after she told them all of her secrets in her life.

That makes it better. That makes it a thousand times better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who loves music like I do, these are the ones that helped inspire my direction:  
> Let's Talk by EMEFE  
> Swear 2 G-D by Sonny Santos, Billie Marten  
> Sine From Above by Lady Gaga, Elton John


	4. Party Like It Won't Melt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally happened. The smut is here. If that's not your thing, ~~why are you here~~ , skip to the SECOND line break! You won't miss anything besides my completely self-indulgent writing. What is plot? Regardless, I truly hope you all enjoy it. 
> 
> Happy reading! Stay safe and love one another.

The wine buzzes in her bloodstream with every racing beat of her heart.

_You’re perfect to me._

Cloud presses her closer and closer until they fall backwards. Cloud grunts with the pressure of her weight, and he winces when the back of his head hits the wooden floor.

They break apart just slightly, Tifa’s body remaining flush against his. She chuckles at the look on his face.

“Cloud, are you okay?” she asks, still laughing.

His cheeks are flushed, but she can’t tell if that’s because of their kissing or from her laughing at him. In answer, he presses his hands against her bottom, and her smiles fade into a moan.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

He’s more than _fine_ , she thinks, taken with the friction between them. She can feel him between the layers of cotton. She can feel their hearts pounding like fists. She leans forward and kisses him again, biting at his bottom lip and terrorizing his tongue with her own. She _needs_ him, suddenly. She’s so certain about him. When a few hours ago, she was waging a silent, internal war with herself, now she isn’t so afraid of the amassing, burgeoning emotions running through her. She has a better understanding of his structure, of the bones that make him. The intricate details, she doesn’t know, but they have time. She’ll learn them and memorize them. She’ll imprint them like a brand on her skin. The prospect of it is enticing and exciting and exhilarating. All of the _e_ words again.

His fingers tease at the lip of her shorts. Her nails drag against the front of his shirt. She can trace the faint lines of his abdomen. _Washboard,_ she thinks, and she grins against his mouth.

“What are you smiling about?” he says, hands shifting to squeeze the backs of her thighs.

“Just thinking of how I can clean all my shirts on your abs.”

His laugh vibrates through her, and has she ever felt anything so glorious?

“Why haven’t you tried before?” he asks.

“Mm,” she moans, continuing to kiss him, her right hand slipping under the edge of his shirt. She feels his heated skin, the firm, resistive give when she pushes her palm into him. “Guess I’ve never found a good time.”

“Maybe when we’re in the shower, you can try it.”

“Oh, yeah, the shower. Good idea.”

She pushes his shirt up and up, inch by inch until he finally sits up and peels it over his head. Tifa stares at him. She brings up one of her hands and places a finger in the dip of his chest. Cloud leans back on his forearms, glancing down at her hand before he looks back up to her. She grazes his skin with her fingertips, traveling from his chest to his stomach. When she spreads her palm against the area above his belly button, his breath comes out as a shudder. He reaches up and lets his hand linger against her jaw, and her left hand holds it there. His thumb lands along her lower lip, and her entire body tenses.

“Tifa,” he says.

She pushes his thumb into her lip, gently biting the soft skin with her teeth. She touches the pad of this thumb with the tip of her tongue, and he stares at her mouth like she holds the answers to the meaning of existence. She feels his expelled breath through the hand on his stomach.

She’s overcome with all of it. The friction between her thighs, the way he’s staring, the texture of his hand in her mouth and on her face. She drags his hand down from her jaw, to her neck, over the curve of her breast to the dip of her waist. She watches him for a moment before she brings her hands to the bottom of his shirt that she’s wearing. She pulls it up and over her head, letting it fall to the floor beside them. Cloud’s grip on her bared waist tightens, and before she can think of anything else, she reaches up and undoes the hair tie around her bun, shaking out her still damp, slightly wavy tresses. She runs a few fingers through it until most of it seems to be untangled.

Cloud is still as a board. The hand on her waist is rock solid and bordering painful, and she presses her fingers over it trying to pry them away.

“Cloud,” she says softly. She leans forward, and her hair pools around them like a curtain. His eyes are so dark blue they’re almost black, and her stomach twists so hard it feels like a tornado blending her insides. When her chest glances against his, she eyes his slightly parted lips and his wild hair and the golden stubble that frames his jaw. “Will you fuck me until morning?”

Her words jolt him. “Holy Shiva,” he hisses, reaching his fingers up into her hair and weaving them around the strands. He pulls her into a hard kiss, one hand sliding to the back clasp of her bra. She sighs when the straps fall down her shoulders, and Cloud pushes up from the ground into a seated position, holding her in place. He pushes the bra straps down the rest of the way, and he tugs it off and throws it behind him. He leans them forward so that she’s on her back underneath him, and he begins kissing her neck, then collarbone, then the expanse of her sternum before he mutters something against the soft skin of her breasts.

“Oh,” she breathes, his lips and tongue against her warm and hot and wet. “Oh, Cloud.”

One of his hands slips down to the waist band of her shorts, finding the button on the front and undoing it before he gives it a little tug. She lifts her bottom in compliance and kicks them off before bringing him down to kiss her again. 

“I’ve never heard you say _fuck_ before,” he says into her mouth. “I’m going to have dreams about it.”

Tifa simultaneously laughs and moans against him, her nipples aroused and sensitive against his chest. The thin fabric of her underwear hits his sweatpants with forceful rocking, and he’s somehow able to press into a divot of skin that makes her legs bend and fall to the side, hoping for him to do it again. 

“Did you feel that?” she breathes sharply, pushing her hips up. He meets them and groans. 

“I’m feeling a lot of things,” he answers. His voice is thick and slurred as he suckles on her neck. She drags her fingers down his back to the band of his sweatpants, pushing past them and reaching to the front. Her fingers graze him, and he buckles. 

“Shit, Tifa, do you want me to come already?”

The way he says it stabs her stomach with dark pleasure. She delicately runs her fingers along him before she takes him in her grip, and his entire body shakes with his exhale. He’s holding himself above her, his forearms surrounding her like cages. Her other hand comes up to cradle the side of his face. The smooth skin in her palm between them is tender and intimate and holding him this way—

His face splits between agony and pleasure. He moves against the rhythm she makes. He kisses her ferociously, enough to pull out a whimper from her mouth. He reaches a hand down and grips her wrist, stopping her and bringing her arms above her head. He settles his hips against her and presses, his length so vivid against her, so indescribably striking. 

“Oh, Cloud, _please,_ ” she keens. 

“Please?” It comes out in a rough rumble—what she suddenly equates to his bedroom voice—and now that she knows he has one, the knowledge is exquisitely fascinating and addictive. 

She curls up her hips against him and he growls. Like an animal. She’s so turned on, she thinks she might be creating a flood. 

“Take off your pants,” she demands. “ _Please.”_

“Mm, not yet.”

His denial makes her want to scream. _“Cloud.”_

He eases off of her, but he doesn’t leave the cradle of their heat for long. He merely stands up and brings her up with him. Her legs have no more bones, and before she has to lean against him, he picks her up, just like before when he came back with the ice bucket, and walks them over to the bed. He softly lowers them onto the comforters, and she feels like a delicate rose in a glass case, surrounded by him so completely. She never wants to leave. 

She reaches down and tugs at his sweatpants, and he finally complies. He pushes them off all the way, followed by his boxer briefs. She admires him unabashedly for several moments, until she realizes she might _need_ to feel abashed, but she doesn’t even have it in her to blush. Her blood has flooded her cheeks so fully by now, her skin will catch fire with the barest friction. But looking at him—

He crawls over her again, effectively cutting off her view. She utters a noise of protest, and he smiles down at her.

“Oh, Cloud,” she whispers. “You’re like a statue.”

At that, even with him fully naked and her one article of clothing away from joining him, _he_ blushes. It’s a ray beam through her chest. She loses the rest of the breath she had been valiantly hanging onto.

“I—“

She cuts him off by kissing him and dragging his hands to her underwear. He needs no other demand. He curls a finger under the band and drags it down her legs. She does the rest by kicking them off to the side. 

He stares at her for several beats too long, about five longer than he stared at her lingerie. His hands linger on her hips, and his face is stewing with boiling desire. He moves back in between her legs, and he kneels down to kiss her stomach first, palming at her breasts and gently squeezing. She sighs at the contact, arching into his hand. He makes a line down her abdomen to the juncture of her hips, and she knows exactly what he’s about to do and she—

“Oh, Cloud, you don’t have to—“

His tongue interrupts her, swirling against her. It is a hint, the briefest graze. Her fingers grip the sheets around them, and he begins to increase his pressure slowly and gradually, his cadence inundating and overwhelming. He licks, and he sucks, and it lasts and lasts and Tifa feels like she is floating above the bed. She might be moaning. She might be screaming.

“Cloud. Oh, please. Fuck.”

“Can you put that on your underwear? Cloud, please, fuck,” he says, and she can almost hear the tease behind his words even though they are deep and dark and thick. Her lungs aren’t working properly. She can hardly breathe. 

He continues licking her up and down and up, deliberate and delayed, his teeth brushing against her clit in the barest touch. It is almost a torment. Every time he catches the spot, she gasps, one hand fisting in the bedsheets, the other digging nails into his forearm. It’s the sensation of him unzipping her, over and over, peeling her to her core. She begins trembling, her inner thighs twitching. Her stomach pulls and tightens and releases only to tighten again. When he leans away from her, the moan of frustration that comes out of her is so uncharacteristic, Cloud hums and replaces his tongue with the palm of his hand, his fingers sliding over the folds of her wet skin. She can feel his roughened callouses against the slickest, softest part of her, and her entire body puckers at the sensation. She’s never loved callouses more than she does now.

He edges up until he’s able to look down on her, and the shine on his lips and chin is the sexiest thing she’s ever seen. When he licks his lip, she moans, pushing her hips harder into his hand and clawing at the back of his neck. She can’t control her responses to his hand pressing against her and relentlessly stroking, and he watches her all the while. She pulls him down until she can kiss him, and he groans against her. It is a deep, endless sound, and Tifa feels it hammer against her belly. She is about to break.

“Cloud,” she keens.

“Tifa,” he rumbles back. “God, you’re gorgeous.”

“Oh, Cloud. Cloud. _Cloud.”_

He presses a kiss on the soft skin of her jaw, underneath her ear. “Come for me, Tifa,” he tells her.

She wants to say _not yet,_ but she can’t deny the dark, indulgent way he commands her. His bedroom voice. The rumbling vibration. His words send a hurricane through her body, and everything curls up and squeezes. Her hands clench his neck and hair. The force of the wave is powerful and feels as though it lasts several minutes until Tifa’s body finally unravels from him.

They are both breathing heavily as Cloud takes his hand away from her. She hurriedly pulls him towards her again, kissing him and reaching down between his thighs. 

He grunts. “Tifa—“

“No,” she says. “I want you.”

The way he looks at her is penetrating and thick, and she imagines it’s one hundred times _more_ when he’s inside of her.

“Give me a second,” he says, reaching over the side of the bed. 

“Cloud—“ 

“Don’t think I only brought these because I thought this would happen,” he says quickly, bringing out a condom from his pack. 

Tifa’s mouth parts open slightly. “I didn’t think that, but…”

At her trailing words, he rips the foil off. “I’ve been…carrying these around with me for a few weeks. Just…in case.”

“I know you’ve wanted to get in my pants, Strife.”

He scoffs a laugh, but after he situates the condom and catches her eye, the sharpness in his eyes cuts her like a knife. 

“I’ve never wanted anyone this badly.”

The words are harsh, like they’re ripped out of his throat. They scrape against her like knees on pavement. 

“Neither have I,” she says, and it’s barely a whisper. She sits up and grabs onto his shoulders, leaning forward to kiss him. She feels his length pressing against her stomach. “Let me,” she breathes as she turns him to lie on the bed. She straddles his hips with her knees. His body is sinking into the mattress, bordered with the white comforters, and for a moment he reminds her of an angel floating among the heavens. 

She slides over him, and his eyes flutter shut for second before they open, half-lidded and murky with pleasure. His throat bobs in a swallow as she slides over him, two times, then three, then four. He hisses between them, and the heat of his ecstasy is written in the soft part of his mouth, in the glaze of his eyes and the tautness of his jaw. He guides her hips over him in a different tilt, and he is sliding into her. It is such a welcome marvel, Tifa’s breath comes out like a piercing puff. He fills her just enough, and there is an inexplicable rightness to it. 

“Shit, Tifa,” Cloud whispers. His voice is strangled, and it is a beautiful sound. One hand reaches up to her face, the other staying on her hip. His thrusts begin measured and slow, her rocking an easy rhythm to follow. The motion is intense with its deliberate cadence, and Tifa feels on the precipice almost immediately. She moans every time they meet each other, and watching the pleasure evolve on his face is a specific kind of luxury. 

Eventually, he flips them over so that he’s on top again, and Tifa must have been completely boneless to let it happen. In the moment, she doesn’t care because their rhythm doesn’t slow or break—it only gets faster and more desperate, and his strokes hit her over and over along the fine edge of rapture. Their fingers intertwine, spread out along their sides, and she clenches when he hits it, that spot, the only spot that matters, then she clenches again, and when she clenches next—she collapses. She twists and grapples, winding her way around his shoulders like they’re her life line, because they are, because she’s drowning and falling into an abyss. 

“Tifa,” he says, and it sounds like a curse wrenched out of him. She feels the shudder of his back and the tremble along the line of his shoulder blades, and _oh_ how she wishes she could live this moment forever. The sudden thought chases immediately after that they will do this again—indefinitely—savagely—wantonly—and her entire being thrums with the potential of the future. 

She holds onto him as they catch their breath, his heaviness and sweat cascading into her. Her fingers thread through the hair at his nape.

“Mm, Cloud.” 

He turns his head to kiss her, long and soft. 

“This is all I need," he tells her, catching his breath.

“Yes,” she says, kissing him back. “Me, too.”

They lie with one another for a while before Cloud apologizes and leaves her for the bathroom. 

“I don’t know how I’ll manage,” she teases him when he walks off. His ass in the lantern light is so much better bare than covered in the jeans he wears. 

Tifa stares up at the ceiling, the sheen of sweat cooling on her skin. Her heart begins to relax, and the dazed burn runs through her limbs. She thinks if they turn off the lantern lights, her glow alone would fill the room. She rolls herself into the bedsheets and pushes her face into the pillow. This is the best she’s felt in—she’s not sure. When she closes her eyes, she can feel her _hair_ tingling. She sighs so deeply, her entire body deflates into the mattress. 

Soon, she hears Cloud’s feet padding on the floor, and the bed dipping with his weight. He pulls the covers up and settles in beside her. “Where’d you go?”

His arms find her and she rolls into him. It surprises her he doesn’t look any different. Not that she was expecting him to look any different. But after witnessing him in the throes of their most intimate moments, seeing his gentle smile is even more attractive than it had been before. _How is that even possible?_ she wonders.

He rests his arms around her waist. She brings a hand up to brush against the hair at his temple, and she smiles back. 

“I, um…” she says, biting her lip. “That was, um…” 

Saying _nice_ hardly gives what they did any justice. It’s more _indescribable._

He leans into her, pressing his forehead against hers. 

“I don’t have any words for it,” he says. 

She bumps his nose, and his words embolden her. 

“Your tongue is very talented.”

Their faces are too close to see if he’s smirking, but she can see the glint in his eyes. 

“If I could survive by eating you, that’s all I would do.”

A shiver darts through her at the words. 

“Cloud, you’re _dirty._ ”

He squeezes her butt and pushes her against him. She hums and drags her hands down his chest. He’s sculpted like marble. She hadn’t been lying before when she said he was like a statue.

“It’s not fun if it’s not a little dirty.”

“I wouldn’t mind if we’re _really_ dirty.”

“I think we could make that happen.”

“What do you want to do?”

He tips his mouth to her ear. “I’ve got a few ideas.”

He tells her things that have her giggling and moaning. He makes her laugh by detailing things that are almost physically impossible, and he makes her begin burning again with whispered pleasures. 

Cloud is nothing if not true to his word. He does his best to peel her apart all evening. They only mean to break from each other to reheat their old room service dinners, but once they are full with food and contentment, their exhaustion overcomes them. They lie beside one another and fall asleep almost immediately.

* * *

Even though they don’t achieve more than a few hours sleep, Tifa wakes up near dawn. 

She’s not used to sharing a bed with anyone. It takes her a minute for the night’s events to run over her mind, and Cloud’s presence beside her fills her with warm satisfaction. 

He’s sleeping heavily. His mouth is parted, and his hair falls in different diagonals across his forehead. The bedsheet is halfway across his chest. The sun hasn’t made its way through the window curtains, but the eternal flame outside takes its place, coloring the room with slashes of morning orange and the shadows of gray. The silence is fragmented by Cloud’s deep sighs. She admires the serenity of his face for several minutes before she slips out of the bed as quietly and carefully as she can. She heads to the bathroom, washes her face, and freshens up, thinking about putting on a bathrobe before she decides against it.  She’s never been so blatantly naked, and it’s too vulnerable to allow herself to feel comfortable. Even if they’d done several things that should make nakedness seem trivial, she can’t help her predilection to cover up with something. It’s a silly thing, and Cloud is still sleeping, anyway, but she decides on holding the bathrobe in front of her as she walks out of the bathroom back to the bed. It’s a guise for her peace of mind and nothing more, and once she slips into the covers, she lies it against the floor.

She tries not to jostle the mattress too much, but Cloud begins to shift. She sees when wakefulness comes upon him, as soon as consciousness clears in his eyes. He raises a hand to rub at them, and he blinks a few times. He turns his head and catches her stare. He smiles and reaches out to her. His fingers run against her cheek.

“Morning,” he says. The early hour makes his voice raspier and crackly.

“Morning,” she whispers.

“How’d you sleep?”

She runs her hand along his forearm, scooting closer. “Like the dead.”

He makes a noise. “Let’s stay here a while.”

“We’ll need to leave in a few hours.”

“I drive fast, remember. You’ll get back to the bar, today.”

“Oh, I know,” she sighs. “I both want and don’t want to go back.”

“Me either.”

She leans forward to kiss him. He responds immediately.

“How about this...” he says. “Let’s make love a few times. Then we can eat breakfast and go home.”

He doesn’t say _have sex_ or _fuck._ _Make love_ matches the softness of the morning, and something about it makes her heart skip a beat.

She kisses him, running a hand over his shoulders. She’s been memorizing his lines all night, but the divots and creases he makes is like an uncharted map. Like the roads he talked about before—when she thinks she might know everything there is to know, there is something new that surprises her.

His hands are on her, too, roaming and searching. He rolls them over and reaches out towards the nightstand. During the night, they moved the condoms to have easy access to them. Fortunately, Cloud, in his indecision, brought the whole box. It was a happy and unforeseen impulse as far as Tifa was concerned.

Once he places the condom on, he reaches a hand down to feel her. He groans.

“You’re so wet,” he says.

She pushes into his hand, her breathing coming out in pants. “As soon as you said _make love_ , I was there.”

He nips at her neck, and she lolls her head to the side, her hands running over his back. Her nails dig into him.

“What else do you like, Tifa?”

“Oh, I like everything you do.”

Her legs wrap around his hips and curl him into her. When he pushes into her, every muscle clenches.

“Gaia,” she gasps. “Everything you do.”

He growls in pleasure. “Tell me what you want.”

“Forever,” she moans. “I want this to last forever.”

It nearly does. It lasts forever and ever until the sun glances through the curtain and the clock drags them, regretfully, back to reality.

* * *

They leave in the late morning. It isn’t as early as Tifa wanted before, but she can’t find it in herself to care.

She had been a bit hesitant about how they would act around each other after the previous evening. Their confessions and their vulnerability is colored distinctly in the harsh light of day and the normalcy of regular life outside of the hotel room, and, at first, Tifa had been unsure how to traverse it with him.

When they had breakfast in the downstairs dining area, nothing seemed amiss with him. He acted as he always had, his demeanor quiet and, if she was bold enough to place the emotion, content. When he asked her how she took her coffee, he refilled her cup when she was finished. That’s all she needed. When he returned with it, she smiled at him. He touched her hand, and their fingers tied and wound together. All the strange flutters of awkwardness vanished in its wake.

Sitting behind him on Fenrir, they take off down the main road. It’s astonishing, she thinks, how the world doesn’t change—the twist of terrain, the fire of the sun, the sprawling curve of the mountains—when the tether between them can evolve in the span of mere hours.

More monsters are active on the route during their drive. Neither is surprised by it, considering the ease they had avoided most the day before. They pass a wyvern’s nest, and a few of them are roused by Fenrir’s roaring engine. They hover over them and fly along. At first, they are only a nuisance before one makes a swooping dive, swiping towards Tifa’s back.

Cloud swerves out of the way. “Thought I could lose them. Guess not,” he tells her.

“That’s alright,” she says. “Don’t stop. Keep driving. I can jump and lure them off you while you park Fenrir.”

She can feel Cloud’s protest in the tensing of his shoulders. “I’m not going to let you—“

“Don’t worry!” she says, already changing her position. She brings her knees up and plants her feet on the seat. “Keep driving straight!”

“Tifa—“

She uses Cloud’s back for counterbalance, pushing herself up to standing. The wyvern along her left assesses the change, cutting its wings to launch itself in her direction. It leads with its claws, and Tifa bends her knees into a partial squat before she propels herself off the motorcycle, sending her body into a flip toward the fiend. The wyvern attempts to turn its body out of her way, its claws pointed too low to grapple her. It’s isn’t quick enough, and she’s able to land two successive kicks on its head.

It cries out in anger and agony, and Tifa tucks and rolls in a landing. The wyvern she hit is honed in on her, the other one stalking Cloud, who is surrounded by a swirling puff of dirt and dust. He must have peeled Fenrir into a sharp turn. He sends a bolt of lightning at the wyvern above him, and it screeches. Blinded momentarily, he stabilizes Fenrir with the kick stand, unsheathing one of his massive swords from its compartment.

Tifa dodges the wyvern as it circles her like a vulture. It’s swooping attacks are easy to time, and it doesn’t take her long to find the rhythm of dodging and countering. She lands a punch that stuns him, and she capitalizes, sending a flurry of jabs and hooks before it can regain its bearings. The beats of its wings slow, and it falls to the ground, one mewling screech leaving its maw. It’s blood sprays around them with the futile flaps of its wings, and Tifa sprints toward it, jumping into the air and using the momentum to land a diving kick. The fiend is put out of its misery with the blow, it’s head crashing to the ground.

She glances behind her, seeing Cloud has also dispatched the other wyvern. His sword is slathered with its green entrails. He’s only ten feet away from her, and he’s giving her a strange, inscrutable look.

A slither of sweat slides down her neck, and she realizes she might look a bit disheveled, but her blood is singing through her limbs, and she sends him a smile.

“I told you not to worry.”

He opens his mouth, but he glances above her and tenses.

“Tifa, look out!”

She feels the shadow before she sees it, and she instinctually tucks into a dodge. Her leg is clipped by a razor sharp claw, and she hisses. She glances up to see another wyvern, but it’s much larger than the other two. It’s chest is thick and robust, it’s wingspan at least twice the width. The claws are longer, too, on par with its fangs.

Cloud is immediately beside her as she reclaims her fighting stance.

“The mom?” she asks.

“Or the mate.”

The leather of her gloves squeak as she tightens her fists. Her eyes dart over their surroundings, but it is mostly flatland and prairie grasses. The monster is bigger, so it’s slower, but one beat of its wings can take it much higher much faster.

“I’ll lure it,” she says.

“I’ll try to keep it grounded.”

Nodding, she takes off, darting underneath it. The wyvern screeches, its head following her path. Distracted, Cloud cuts at the underside of its belly. The slash isn’t deep enough to cause much damage except for inciting its anger, and she turns back to him, slicing the air with a claw. Cloud parries it counters with a slash at her arm.

Tifa flanks her, sending a jab into its ribs, under the tender part of her wing. She growls and flicks her tail at Tifa. Tifa rolls underneath it and sends another kick at the area she punched.

Cloud swiftly slices at the same wounded spot on its chest. The wyvern wildly swings at him, then sends a blast of aero immediately after. Cloud dodges the swing but is sent flying with the spell, flipping and landing several yards away.

Tifa sends a diving kick to its arm, and she feels the snapping vibration of it in her body. It’s arm dangles at its side, effectively broken. It staggers to the side, landing on the ground, the earth rumbling underneath her like a quake.

It sends another spell of aero at Tifa, but she’s already running around to the other side of it, swinging an elbow around to its jaw. The wyvern’s neck bobs to the side, and in its staggered state, flicks its tail and wings around in a messy attempt of attacks. Tifa avoids her wings, continuing to barrage her with punches and kicks to its head and chest. Cloud’s sword rips through one of its wings, and the wyvern crashes onto its side from the lack of balance. Its wounded shriek is deafening, almost enough to shred through their eardrums like a knife. Both Tifa and Cloud cover their ears, and in its last ditch effort, the beast swings its tail around. It hits Cloud’s side and he goes sprawling into Tifa. They tumble together along the ground, rolling away from the wyvern.

Cloud grunts as they slow, finally coming to a stop. “Sorry. You okay?”

“I’m fine. Are you?”

“Yeah.”

The wyvern screams again, but it’s not as deafening as the one before. It seems to be recovering and regenerating, allowing herself to heal while they’re stunned. Before Cloud can say anything, Tifa rocks up onto her feet and sprints back to the wyvern. Her endorphins are all consuming. Her heart races, and the sweat mixes with the dirt and grime from the fight. Her limit rushes through her with every stride. Her skin prickles with the power and the force, and she hasn’t unleashed this in so long, it feels like a volcano erupting from a crater in her stomach, the lava flooding each web of her veins.

She lands her attack as soon as the wyvern spreads its wings. It is the killing blow. The beast’s chest shatters in an array of leather skin and fragments of bone. The light dissipates from her eyes, and her body falls to the ground in one last rumble of the earth.

Tifa lands in a kneel, breathing heavily before standing. Her hands shake with the vestiges of adrenaline, and the boundless energy of the fight cascades within her. She turns to find Cloud, but he’s already come up behind her. He’s giving her that inscrutable look again. Distantly, it makes her nervous, but him standing so close to her after a fight like this makes it easy to ignore, a large grin breaking across her face.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” she asks breathlessly.

Cloud stabs the ground with his sword, sinking the blade deep enough for it to stand on its own. He takes two large steps before he slams into her, one hand gripping the back of her head, the other along her waist. He kisses her with such ferocity, she can almost feel his tongue in her throat.

All the leftover adrenaline and endorphins pool in her stomach, dripping down in between her thighs. She claws at the back of his neck.

“When I didn’t think you could get any hotter,” he says, and that’s all he says.

“I told you I was a good fighter,” she manages.

_“_ Goddamn, Tifa _.”_

He pushes her down and takes her right there, right in the prairie grasses a mere twenty yards away from the main road. 

All the other monsters are smart enough to leave them alone.

* * *

“You didn’t tell me you were wounded.”

They make a pit stop at Cloud’s apartment before going to Seventh Heaven, Cloud citing that it’s closer and more secluded—because Zack’s at work while Yuffie would most certainly interrogate them about the trip. Tifa doesn’t mind the stop. They are half an hour ahead of Tifa’s internal schedule, and the prospect of seeing where Cloud calls home is too exciting to pass up. In the time they’ve dated, she’s never been to see it. It’s mostly been due to their conflicting schedules with Cloud either being on a job or Tifa working, and the easiness of Cloud coming to visit the bar when he gets back in town.

Cloud parks Fenrir in the apartment garage, leading her to the second floor of the building. He’s in room 204, and it’s when he’s placing his key into the door that he notices the puckering, inflamed cut on Tifa’s calf.

“Oh,” she says, glancing down at it. “I didn’t know I was.”

He frowns at her. She puts her hands on her hips.

“Maybe I would have noticed had I not been so _distracted,”_ she accuses.

His frown quirks up into a small smirk before he frowns again, opening the door.

“You shouldn’t have been so amazing at fighting.”

“Well, if the fight hadn’t been such a rush…”

“If you didn’t have such a powerful limit break…”

She shakes her head in amusement, eyes drifting around the entrance of the apartment. The entryway leads immediately into a living room, the alcove of the kitchen off to the left and the threshold of a hallway branching to the right. She notices leftover dishes piled in the sink and a few plates left on the coffee table. The walls are sparsely decorated, with a television sitting atop a dresser that, seemingly, acts as a stand.

Tifa’s first impression is that this place is a bachelor pad through and through. The colors consist of brown, black, beige, and cream. There is nothing thoughtful in the decorations—because there are hardly any decorations—and Tifa can almost smell the _boy_ that permeates the room. It borders on being a pigsty. They’re messy.

Tifa is abruptly satisfied. Finally. She’s found another flaw.

He walks around to the kitchen counter, placing his pack atop it. He then takes off his dusty boots and leaves them by the front door. She copies him and does the same before she can track in anything, though she wonders absently if it would really matter in the grand scheme of things. Cloud then gestures to the couch.

“Sit,” he says.

She looks at him. “Why?”

“I have cure junctioned. I’ll heal you.”

“Oh, Cloud, it’s hardly a scratch. I’ll just wash it.”

He pushes against her back, steering her to the couch regardless. She huffs, but allows him to guide her. She sits, and he peels off his gloves, placing them on the table. He sits on the floor in front of her and takes her leg, placing her foot on his thigh and inspecting the cut that trails from her ankle to an inch below the crease of her knee.

It looks worse than it is. She’s covered in dried dust and a few speckles of blood from the wyverns. An angry red borders the cut because its been neglected, and now that she stares at it and acknowledges it exists, she begins to feel the stinging burn.

He places his palm right above her skin, hovering at the start of the wound at her ankle. A brilliant green cascades into the space between his palm and her leg, and she feels the intense sensation of the healing itch from the spell. His eyebrow pinches as he concentrates, trailing his palm up as the skin stitches back together. She tries to take her mind off the sensation by watching the frown of his lips.

He’s very protective, she realizes. Her mind runs over all the words that he’s told her that struck her as strange.

When he danced with her at the New Midgar bar. _Better me than someone else._

When he drove her home from the bar. _I won’t let anything happen to you._

Him telling her he’d deliver the roses back to Rude.

He had hardly known her, then. Now, he’s healing her. All of these unnecessary things she could have done quite fine on her own. Perhaps that’s what makes this meaningful. She doesn’t have to allow this, but she will, because it’s Cloud who’s offering. Anyone else might and would probably annoy her.

When her skin is light pink and healed, he rubs his thumb along the faint scar. It zings with renewed nerve endings, and Tifa almost jerks her leg away from him. He glances up at her.

“Sorry,” she says, relaxing. “It’s just sensitive.”

Shifting, he lifts her leg up and kisses where he thumb had been. There’s nothing extraordinary about it, but she inhales sharply, her eyes lingering on where his lips touch her scar.

“Come on,” he states, standing up. He offers her a hand to pull her up from the couch, and she takes it. He tangles their fingers together and she follows him to the hallway. She’s half-expecting him to take her to his bedroom. Her heart flips when he leads her to the bathroom.

She feels herself beginning to blush as he turns the switch for the shower head.

“So, we’re taking a shower?” she asks him, raising her brow as he looks at her.

He suddenly seems abashed, glancing to the tile floor. “I’m dirty, you’re dirty. I didn’t think it would be a bad idea…” He clears his throat, then goes to turn the handle in the shower again. “Sorry. I can take you home.”

She puts her hand on his forearm, stopping him. “It is a good idea.”

He gazes at her, the redness fading from his cheeks. She unbuckles her gloves and places them on the counter beside the sink. He doesn’t make a move to undress, and his instantaneous doubt seems to burrow into him. Earlier, she would never have guessed he would react this way, with as quickly as he had undressed her in the open, very public prairie. Now that they are in private, intimate, close quarters, he hesitates.

She wants to quell his reluctance. She raises her arms above her head and waits for him. He opens his mouth, as if to say something, but closes it and steps forward. He curls his fingers underneath her shirt, and he tugs it up over her head. His hands linger against the armor she wears across her chest, unlatching the straps on her side. She shimmies out of it, and he drops it to the floor. She unclips the shoulder guard he wears before she reaches for the rough hewed cotton of his tank top, pulling it up and over his chest. He tosses it to the floor. His fingers slide to the button of her shorts, undoing both the button and the seam of the zipper. He dips his thumb along the space between the fabric and her waist, slipping both her shorts and underwear down to her thighs. She pushes them down the rest of the way and steps out of them.

She mimics him, undoing the clasp of the jeans he wears, and drags them down his thighs. He pulls the bottoms of them, left in only his boxer briefs. They are plain and black, but the steam from the shower is becoming sticky and hot, and she looks up at him as she pushes her fingers underneath the waist band, slowly tugging them down. He kicks them off to the side and kisses her, brushing his palm against her ribs. It is so much slower than it was a few hours ago, and Tifa doesn’t know which pace she enjoys more. There is something about the building, in this moment, versus the manic, crazed, lustful need before.

He turns, opens the shower door and steps in, pulling her along behind him. The water is just on the edge of scalding, and Cloud readjusts it, the steam swirling around them in a thick mist.

“Sorry,” he says. “You’re going to smell like a guy.” He gestures to the shampoo on one of the tiled ledges.

“No. I’m going to smell like you,” she says.

“Oh. I like that better.”

She laughs and pushes him under the spray. She reaches for the shampoo, and she squeezes a dollop of it in her hand. He turns once his hair is thoroughly wet, and she reaches forward and lathers him up until his hair is concealed with an afro of foam and bubbles. He groans as she scratches at his scalp.

“I could get used to this.”

She smiles at the completely guileless look of his face.

“We should fight monsters together more often. Have sex on battlefields then take showers after.”

His eyes open to stare at her before she drags her nails along the base of his skull. They close again, and he sighs.

“Let’s make it a habit.”

“Okay. What are you doing tomorrow?”

“I’m obviously having sex with you in a prairie.”

“I’ll put it in my planner.”

“Shit, where did you learn how to do this?”

“…wash hair?”

He smiles. “You’re too good at it.”

She fluffs the back of his hair one more time before leaning in to kiss him. She gently pushes him under the spray, and he rinses off. She watches the water cascade in rivulets down the lines of his torso, and she drags a hand down the side of her face. He has one of those torsos she sees in underwear advertisements. He’s ridiculous.

He comes out from under the water, gripping her waist and spinning her. “Your turn.”

She fingers through the dirt in between her strands, the water slicking her thick hair. “So you want to wash my hair?”

“I won’t be as good as you,” he says, putting a generous blot of shampoo in his palm. “But I think I can manage.”

When her head is heavy and fat with water, she turns out of the spray, standing in front of Cloud. He reaches into her hair, delicately tugging and pulling through it like a comb. His hands are kind to her as they create a bundle of sudsy bubbles. She watches him as he attempts to curl her hair around his fingers like spaghetti on a fork.

“You have so much hair,” he says. It sounds full of admiration.

“It gets heavy. That’s why I tie it at the end. I can’t wear it in a ponytail for long.”

“I’ve always loved your hair.”

Her lips quirk in a bemused smile, and she closes her eyes once he begins to caress her scalp with his blunted nails.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Mm,” he grunts, and she feels him kiss her. It’s lined with water and softness.

He continues lathering her hair for a while, before he deems it clean enough. She steps back underneath the water and waits until her hair is flattened and slick across her temples and her back. Cloud, in the meantime, gazes at her while sudsing up a wash towel.

“You know…” she says, thinking about something. She gives her hair one more rinse before she steps closer to him. She grabs at the towel and presses it against his chest. “You promised to serenade me.”

He leans a shoulder against the tile while she drags the towel along his torso. “Oh, I promised, did I?”

“Yes,” she says, finding a stubborn patch of dirt on his bicep. A few of his veins protrude along his forearms, and they remind her of tree roots, full of strength and stability. “You also told me we’d go dancing.”

“Singing and dancing? You have high expectations.”

“Says the guy who told me I’m perfect.”

He lightly smiles. “So you want singing, dancing…” he trails. “Fighting monsters, sex in dubious places, maybe flowers if Aerith is correct, and probably something close to perfection…”

She fights him for the towel for a moment before she lets him have it, laughing. “Okay, when you say it _that_ way…”

He runs it over her neck, her shoulder, and along her collarbone. He holds her arm and rubs the towel against it. “The more I think about it, the more I want to dance, too.”

She narrows her eyes at him suspiciously. “No, you don’t.”

“Yeah, I do,” he says, moving to her other arm. “I want to dance with somebody.”

“Oh, _somebody._ Like, Andrea, somebody?”

A grin creeps up onto his face. He cleans the creases between her fingers. “Mm. Somebody.” He places the towel on the ledge beside them, intertwining their fingers. He grabs her waist with his other hand, bumping their hips together. “Oh, I wanna dance with somebody.”

Tifa nearly chokes. He’s singing. _Singing._ She isn’t expecting this. She had thought he was _joking._

“I wanna feel the heat with somebody. Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody. With somebody who— _really likes_ —me.”

She begins gigging, smothering her mouth with the hand that isn’t intertwined with his own. Her shoulders shake with the effort.

“Clock strikes upon the hour, and the sun begins to fade.” He sways, tilting her with him. “Still enough time to figure out how to chase my blues away. I’ve done alright up to now. It’s the light of day that shows me how, and when the night falls, loneliness calls.”

Tifa pushes her forehead into his shoulder. What’s even more shocking is that his voice isn’t half-bad. “ _Cloud_.”

He skips the chorus entirely, pushing his lips against her ear and his cheek against her temple. His voice is a rumbly baritone, and it trickles into her ear like the water spray on their skin. “I’ve been in love, and lost my senses…spinning through the town.”

He reaches down and squeezes her butt. She jumps and squeaks, and he chuckles.

“Sooner or later, the fever ends, and I wind up feeling down. I need a woman who’ll take a chance on a love that burns hot enough to last…”

He pauses to bite tenderly at her neck. Goosebumps raise along her arms.

“So when the night falls, my lonely heart calls.”

She doesn’t realize she’s grinning so widely until he falls back into a different part of the chorus.

“Don’t you wanna dance? Say you wanna dance with me, baby.”

Tifa tries to hold back a snort, but she can’t.

“Oh, I wanna dance with somebody. I wanna feel the _heat—“_ he brings his voice an octave higher, and it cracks, and it’s by far Tifa’s favorite part— “with somebody. Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody—with somebody who loves me.”

It ends too soon, but his voice is profoundly euphoric as it settles over her. She wants to laugh and cry at the same time. She brings her hands up into his hair and squeezes his face, staring up at him. _“Cloud,_ you just _sang_ to me.”

His smile is boyish and sheepish and lovely.

“Serenaded.”

“Oh, right, _serenaded.”_

“I told you I’m at my best in the shower. And I _promised,_ apparently.”

She can’t take it. She kisses him, again and again and again.

“You’re—so—“

“I’m so, what?”

 _Everything,_ she thinks. Instead, she says, “You’re never singing karaoke. I want this all for myself.”

He laughs, so light and brief and blazing like a shooting star across the night sky. It must be like a meteor crashing into earth and sculpting the terrain, transforming the slopes of the mountains, blotting out the fire of the sun.

It must be, because right then and there, Tifa Lockhart knows without any inkling of doubt.

She’s in love with Cloud Strife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) by illuminati hotties was the actual cover song that inspired this. Thanks Spotify! But also Whitney Houston.  
> In my mind Whitney's version = Zack, illuminati hotties = Cloud.  
> I encourage you to listen to both to get into the playful moods. 😎 Maybe go sing in the shower.  
> EDIT: also, I have ONE more chapter for this before I can deem it officially complete. Thanks again, everyone!


	5. There's No Now Without Tomorrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all again, endlessly, for taking this journey with me. This is going to be the last chapter for this story, but I’ll be back with other ideas for other stories! And I actually have inspiration to finish them, and a super cool community to hang with when I can. So, I hope you all enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed writing it. This was, I think, the funnest thing I’ve ever written, and it reminded me of the unpredictability of (my) writing, and the life experiences that mean everything, when at the time, they didn’t feel like they meant anything at all. 
> 
> Shout out to some of the reviewers who mentioned wanting to see more of the Rude dynamic! Your words inspired me, and I think you made this chapter better than what it was originally.
> 
> As always, happy reading. Stay safe and love one another.

“Okay, remember what I said about the DJ being the bomb at New Midgar’s bar?” Yuffie says, body loose and ready to fly. “I lied. _This_ DJ is the bomb.”

Tifa agrees. The music is upbeat and lively, and the place is bordered with the deceptive luxury of a parlor, though it’s truly just a fancy bar with all the trappings of an elite, inclusive club.

Tonight, the WRO is holding its annual company awards ceremony, which Cloud has told her is a very exceptional excuse for the executives to collectively get drunk, commingle, and gossip to their heart’s content. The awards are bogus. Cloud has been working here for two years, now, and he went the previous year for approximately fifty-two minutes.

“Think you’ll stay for fifty-three minutes this time?”

He gives her a smile. “I have a much higher incentive to stay this year.”

The WRO is rich enough to rent out the Honey Bee Parlor for a whole evening—which is labeled from 6pm to 6am. Andrea Rhodea is on good enough terms with Reeve Tuesti and Rufus Shinra, the CEO and CFO respectively, and all of them are for making this party a full on tradition. With such powerful heads in charge, it will take something very catastrophic to make the tradition collapse. Cloud doesn’t hype up the party with any degree of interest, but Zack’s enthusiasm more than makes up for Cloud’s lackluster response.

“There’s gonna be free booze, dancing, guest rooms in case you party too hard—or, honestly if you find a friend—“ Zack winks. “And rich people and an excuse to dress up and look hotter than usual.”

“Oh, Cloud, it sounds exactly like your scene,” Tifa teases.

He leans into her, wrapping his arm around her back and squeezing her hip. In her ear, he says, “The guest rooms sound promising.”

She elbows his side, and he huffs a laugh.

All WRO employees receive an invitation for a plus one. Tifa had worried Yuffie would be upset being left behind, though she had planned to shut her bar down that evening to allow Yuffie and the rest of her employees a well deserved day off.

Yuffie, however, surprises her.

“The WRO ceremony? Oh, yeah. I’m going.”

She’s all nonchalant, blasé, and completely aloof. All three things are very un-Yuffie-like. Tifa doesn’t fall for it for a second. She recruits Aerith for a very well-meaning interrogation.

“Okay, Kisaragi, hit us with the goods,” Aerith says.

“Who is it?” Tifa prompts.

Yuffie smirks, rubbing her nails against her shirt. “You don’t know him. Maybe you’ll meet him.”

“Yuffie!”

“That’s not fair!”

Yuffie only cackles, their whining hardly putting a dent in her defenses. Yuffie loves suffering. They never had a chance. Even when they spend all afternoon getting ready in their bathroom together, both Tifa and Aerith needling her endlessly, then occasionally, then with subtle jabs, but Yuffie only shrugs or smiles or hums and deflects.

And, finally, they merely enjoy dressing themselves up, spending plenty of time in front of the bathroom mirror, swapping makeup, telling each other how gorgeous they are, and blaring music from the stereo system in Tifa and Yuffie’s bedroom.

Tifa, Cloud, Zack, Aerith, and Yuffie had all taken a ride share together, arriving to the Honey Bee Parlor around 7 pm. Cloud had ushered Tifa in on his arm, and Tifa was slightly dazzled by the atrium, the sprawl of it in a semicircle formation, the arms of the stained concrete floor reaching almost all the way around the front room. Three, thin steps lead down into the open space of the lounge, with small, barstool tables interspersed along the floor. Women in honey bee outfits flit between the WRO employees, carrying trays of champagne and hors d’ourves. Tifa internally applauds the women for their delicate balance between holding the trays and avoiding collisions with their rotund bee body and stinger.

“Have I told you how beautiful you look, tonight?” Cloud asks her, once Yuffie flounces off to the dance floor.

“You’ve only said it about three times,” Tifa answers, sipping at her champagne. She had decided on a new dress for the evening. It is a halter top, with a peek-a-boo diamond along her midriff, and the length ending at the body of her calves. It is a deep shade of crimson, the material a lightweight chiffon. It is fitted through the waist with the skirt free and flowing, the left side having a daring slit up her thigh. It’s a dress Tifa can wear several places other than this one outing. Pretty, yet practical. That’s how she liked her clothes.

Cloud must also like her clothes this way. He keeps finding the open slit on her side and drawing lines on her thigh.

Yuffie and Aerith chose her lipstick, which is almost darker than the crimson of her dress, but is a striking contrast with her skin tone. Then she went with a neutral smoky eye, using browns instead of blacks and grays.

Cloud’s dressed up nicer tonight, as well. She hasn’t seen him in anything fancier than relaxed jeans and a casual shirt. This evening, he’s wearing a dark, forest green button down shirt, black slacks that look pressed, and black boots. He’s rolled up the sleeves to his elbows, and the top two buttons have been left undone. He makes the formal dress almost _seem_ casual, and the loosened collar tempts her to tease the skin there. The deep green of his shirt makes his blue eyes seem richer, too, the threads of green running throughout them more prominent. The low light of the parlor makes them shine like lightning.

“You don’t look so bad yourself, Strife.”

“You’ll be shocked to know I dressed myself.”

“Zack didn’t give you any pointers?”

“Nope.”

“Wow, a man who can dress himself without help? That’s so attractive.”

Cloud drags his hand to her butt and pinches it. She jumps and laughs.

They sip on their champagne as Cloud points out all of the employees and prominent figures. There’s the main players—Reeve Tuesti, the president and CEO of WRO, and his assistant, Cait, who is a very feline-like man, his jaw sharp and his eyes thin. His grin is genial, however, and that softens his appearance. There’s Rufus Shinra, the son of the controversial President Shinra, and whom Tifa is overly familiar. She wrinkles her nose and makes a noise under her breath, and Cloud’s hand on her hip is a welcoming thing. Rufus and his father were never on good terms. They had always been at odds. She can’t blame the son for the sins of the father, but Rufus’ likeness to Shinra twists her stomach.

“He seems to be a great CFO, from what I’ve heard,” Cloud says. “Guess there’s one good thing to come out of the old Shinra.”

There’s a myriad of employees underneath Rufus, Cloud goes on to tell her, with Elena Brogan, Reno Kirke, Tseng Li, and…Rude.

Cloud says his name with blatant spite, and Tifa smiles at him.

“You know, this whole time and I didn’t realize Rufus was Rude’s _immediate_ boss. How weird.”

“What a dick.”

Tifa shakes her head. “If he hadn’t dumped me, I wouldn’t have met you.”

Cloud frowns. “I wouldn’t give Rude _that_ much credit.”

“I guess not credit. More like…happenstance. Serendipity?”

Cloud looks at her, his frown turning contemplative. “I’d been to Seventh Heaven before I met you.”

Tifa feels her jaw go slack. “What?”

“I’m almost certain more than half the people at this function have been there at least once.”

“But…but…” Tifa splutters, suddenly shocked. “I never saw you.”

He smiles a bit at that, shifting his weight. “You weren’t looking for me.”

His simple answer does nothing to help her grasp the thought of Cloud being in her bar without her even _noticing._ “But I should have seen you.”

“Tifa, you have a thousand customers. You’re always manning the bar and managing everyone. It’s not like I ever went up to talk to you before meeting you in New Midgar. I just hung out with Zack or Aerith or Biggs, always in some booth far away from where you worked.”

The thought of Cloud being in a booth in her bar, being so close to him and never knowing it, makes her feel like a rod has been shoved through her spine. Everything has tensed up within her.

“Why didn’t you come up and…” she starts, interrupting herself with a sigh.

He gently presses himself closer to her side. “I never came up to talk to you because I didn’t have the nerve.”

“But…why…you’re telling me this, _now?_ ”

Her reaction has him chuckling into her ear. “It’s not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal, too!”

“Why?”

It’s such a silly question to her. “Why? Because we…this could have happened so much sooner.”

The smile he gives her is soft and sweet. “I don’t think I would have wanted to meet you in any other way than the way we did.”

The rod in her back twists. She almost feels crippled by his words. She edges up to kiss him, and he kisses her back.

She leaves a reddish-pink imprint on his lips, and she raises her hand and rubs her fingers against them, attempting to wipe it off. “I’ve marked you,” she says.

He catches her hand. “Leave it.”

They stare at each other. Tifa can hear her heart beginning to drown out the bass and treble of music flowing out of the speakers. The pounding of it rages into her fingertips, and she wonders if Cloud can feel it in his palm.

“Wanna find one of those guest rooms?” he asks her. His voice is low and rough. Tifa laughs breathlessly.

“ _Cloud,_ we haven’t been here for half an hour! We should enjoy it.”

“We’d enjoy it much more by ourselves.”

She thinks about it. She bites her lip. His eyes dart to it, and she feels his hold on her tighten. He’s about to pull her away, she knows it, into some dark trenches of corridors, to be alone, as he said, enjoying the night all by themselves.

Before she loses her composure, she says, “I want to learn about where you work. I want to know the people. Then, I promise, we can enjoy the rest of the night.”

He presses his forehead to hers with a deep, agonizing sigh. “There’s nothing interesting about where I work,” he says, petulantly. It is so boyish and whiny that it makes Tifa laugh, and it unwinds and calms the rampant desire Cloud always seems to stoke when they’re together.

“I want to know every single boring detail.”

“ _Tifa.”_

“C’mon. You’ll be rewarded in full later,” she winks.

He eases back from her, but his hand lingers on the slit at her thigh. “Fine.”

He tells her the rest of what he knows. Reno is a ladies man and he tends to hear conversations of ladies in the office either talking about him, lusting after him, or _describing_ him, and Cloud admits he is embarrassed by the amount of information he has gleaned over Reno’s anatomy.

He calls Rude a dick again, and that’s all he has over the subject of him, making Tifa laugh more.

Elena is one of the newer members of the organization. She may or may not have a crush on Tseng, who is her adviser and mentor.

Tseng has been working there for a number of years, now, and is the main liaison with the intelligence branch, where Zack works. They are the ones who tend to communicate with each other, though the jury’s out on if Tseng actually likes Zack at all.

“Did Aerith ever tell you how her and Zack met?” Cloud asks, taking a drink from his newly acquired whiskey soda.

“She’s told me some things, but not the full story. All I know is that Zack fell into her flower garden when he was chasing after someone who stole information from WRO’s archives,” Tifa says. “And that she scolded him for five straight minutes for ruining her lilies.”

Cloud smiles at that. “Yeah, that was it. Aerith didn’t like him at first. Zack took it as a challenge to get on her good side. You know how competitive Zack is.”

Tifa rolls her eyes good-naturedly. Zack has been trying to beat Tifa’s score at darts ever since he gained the knowledge she had the highest score. _That’s unfair! You own the bar!_

“Zack visited Aerith at least once a week, buying a different bunch of flowers every time. He’d ask her what the flowers meant and what colors signified and the genus and species. He’d flirt with her. He’d talk to her about why she chose flowers as a profession. He even helped fix one of her flower wagons and did a few errands and deliveries. He was really putting it in for all he was worth.” Cloud sends a glance to Tseng, who’s talking between Elena and Reno. Elena laughs at something he says.

“Tseng had a thing for Aerith before Zack met her. Apparently, he’d visit her flower shop whenever he was in the neighborhood, and according to Zack, he was in her neighborhood all the time.”

Tifa blinks. “Aerith never told me this! What happened with Tseng?”

“Zack walked into her shop one day after work, like usual. Tseng was already there. Him and Aerith were, uh, kissing.”

Tifa’s mouth parts. She glances around the room to find Aerith, who’s in the middle of the floor and dancing with Zack. She feels an immediate stab of betrayal from the information—but then shakes her head at herself. She’s only known Aerith two months. And Tifa has hardly relayed to Aerith her rickety past.

“What did Zack do?” Tifa asks. She watches as Zack spins her and pulls her back in, Aerith’s dress fanning out with the motion. Zack’s hand lands on her waist, and Aerith grins up at him.

“Zack told me he stood there and stared at them in shock before accidentally toppling over one of her plants.”

“Accidentally?”

Cloud shrugs, smiling a little. “Zack’s a klutz. I could see him stumbling.” He goes on to tell her that the broken pot made Aerith and Tseng stop kissing. Tseng seemed embarrassed to be caught. Aerith looked mortified.

Zack, with all his bluster and bravado, realized he had a desperate fondness for Aerith, and seeing her kissing Tseng was an unending bruise to his spirit.

“Zack ended up laughing, apologized for ruining the moment—“ _wow, Tseng, I didn’t know you had it in you to_ feel _things! ”_ —and left.” Cloud shakes his head, following Tifa’s gaze to Aerith and Zack. “I’ve never known Zack to be so upset. He never lets things get to him, but the next week, his mood was awful. He was distracted. He’s always had a thing for girls—he wasn’t as bad as Reno, but he’d flirt with them and charm them—so this was new. It really bothered him.”

Zack didn’t visit Aerith that week, nor did he visit her the week after. Cloud had been fed up with him and told him to go to the flower shop and stop wallowing. Zack had said, angsty and dramatically, _what’s the point?_

It was the third week when Aerith came to visit Zack instead. She was carrying a basket full of daffodils, wearing a white sundress bordered with pink and red threaded patterns along the hem. She was vibrant and vivacious, everything that Tifa has equated with her since their meeting. Tifa can imagine it, Aerith standing like a beacon in Zack’s doorway, and Zack being walloped with breathless adulation, adoration, and filled with the gleam that she sees in his eyes right now, as they dance across the parlor.

“I waited,” Aerith told him. “I was hoping you’d come back, and I waited, but you never came.”

Zack looked away. He hesitated. “I’m sure you have a lot of customers, Aerith. Why would you wait for just one?”

She stared at him for a long moment, determination growing on her brow. “These are daffodils,” she told him. “They can mean a lot of things. Chivalry. Regard. Misfortune.” She quieted. “Unrequited love and new beginnings.”

Zack shifted his weight before opening his mouth. “If this is your way of trying to nicely reject me—“

“New beginnings,” she said, interrupting him and holding out two daffodils towards him. Zack stared before reaching up to to take them. Their hands lingered.

“Wasn’t Tseng...“

She shook her head, glancing at their hands. “Tseng wasn’t the one I wanted.”

“To this day, Zack still regrets not getting there first. Aerith teases him about being late,” Cloud says. “It would have saved them both a lot of grief. Me included.”

Tifa grins. “It makes me love them even more.”

Cloud carries on, pointing over to the other side of the dance floor, where interspersed, small, circular tables pepper the area. A tall man with short, black hair and strikingly red eyes stands at one, nursing a drink, wearing a black suit and tie that is as red as his eyes. He’s somehow able to make himself blend with the darkened lighting, as though he is encapsulated in shadow, but something is terribly familiar about him. It’s on the tip of Tifa’s tongue, and she frowns in thought.

“That’s Vincent Valentine,” Cloud says. “He’s the COO, and he’s my boss. I report to him when needed, but like with everyone else, I communicate with whoever I need to if necessary.”

The name doesn’t ring a bell. Tifa continues watching him, and she almost spits out her drink when Yuffie sidles up next to him, grinning her mischievous, impish grin. Vincent looks down at her with a blank, apathetic expression. It all suddenly hits Tifa like a bulldozer.

“No _way_ ,” Tifa breathes, setting down her glass on the bar counter. “He’s the guy I saw her sitting with at the New Midgar bar!”

Cloud raises a brow. “Vincent? Oh,” he says before scoffing a laugh. “Yeah. That’s why I told you she’d be fine.”

Tifa spins around, turning on him. “What? You knew this _whole time?_ ”

Realizing his mistake, Cloud holds up his hands in a placating gesture. “I didn’t know they actually…got together. Vincent hardly talks. I just knew his code of ethics was supernatural. He’d never do anything to harm a woman. Actually, I didn’t even know he was interested in women,” he mutters.

Tifa’s jaw drops lower and lower until she starts laughing uncontrollably. She places a hand over her face. “How does this even happen?” She glances over to where Yuffie stands with Vincent and spies the man’s hand wrap around her waist. Yuffie looks up and catches eyes with Tifa across the room, and Tifa unabashedly points an accusing finger at Vincent. Yuffie only grins and shrugs, looking for all the world like she got away with something.

“I guess the WRO employs only the most good-looking, smartest applicants,” Cloud deadpans, making Tifa burst into a little snort. Cloud laughs at that.

“I don’t think I’ve heard you snort before.”

“Oh, no. This happens when I drink.”

Cloud leans in close. “Really? What else happens when you drink?”

She narrows her eyes at him, her lips quirking up. “Oh, you know. I talk to random, handsome males and ask them life’s most difficult questions. I kiss strangers and take rides home with them.”

“That’s right. I remember, now. I think you dance, too.”

“That’s only after a few more drinks.”

“Andrea is around here somewhere. Should I find him for you? I think I also remember you saying you really wanted a lesson from him…”

“Cloud! No, no, no, no,” she protests as he grabs at her waist, attempting to pull her toward the expanse of the dance floor. “Not yet, not yet!”

“If not now, when?” he smiles, and Tifa brings her hands up to hold the sides of his face.

“Later. Or tomorrow. Or never.”

He lets her pull him down for a kiss, making his lips tinged with an even redder hue.

“You should try on my lipstick,” she tells him. “It’ll look good on you.”

“Only if I can apply it by kissing you.”

“I wouldn’t mind that.”

“Tifa! Cloud!” Aerith’s voice calls from the abyss of the parlor. She runs up to them and tugs on Tifa’s arm. “Come with me! I’ve never danced with you! It’s a tragedy we must change this instant!” Tifa grins as she’s tugged along, glancing back at Cloud and Zack. “Hey, you two! You are coming!”

Zack waves her off, and Cloud only smiles at her. “Maybe later. You two need your girl time.”

Aerith sticks her tongue out at them. Tifa grips Aerith’s hand.

“Why didn’t you tell me how you and Zack got together?”

“What? I didn’t?”

They find their place in the middle of the floor, and Aerith grabs both of Tifa’s hands while they sashay around each other.

“You only told me he fell into your flower garden and ruined your lilies. You didn’t tell me about Tseng!”

Aerith’s cheeks turn rosy, and she laughs. “Oh, I feel like I’ve told everyone that story so many times, I just assumed you knew it, too! Oh, Teef, it was so weird. I was in a literal love triangle!”

Tifa shakes her head and spins around her. “Did you like Tseng?”

Aerith follows her lead, and she shakes her hips while they both laugh. “A little. He was a good friend, especially when I first opened my shop. But then Zack appeared out of nowhere, and he made me so _angry_ for ruining what I worked so hard on—did you know he ripped up about a third of my inventory? I thought, the nerve of this boy!” Aerith places her hands on Tifa’s shoulders, and Tifa wraps hers around Aerith’s waist. “Then he made me even angrier by being so cute. He had dimples. He was charming. He was sweet and dangerous. And he kept visiting me! I thought, what is this boy trying to prove?”

“Obviously that he had Gaia’s largest crush on the pretty flower girl in town.”

Aerith’s laughter tinkles like bells. “Tifa, he _asked_ to run errands for me. When I broke my flower wagon, I didn’t even have to ask him to fix it. He just _did_ it. I knew I loved him, then. We’d barely touched one another, but I _knew._ And then Tseng came in one day, and he strolled up and confessed that he cared about me. I didn’t know what to do. He kissed me, and I was shocked and just stood there. Oh, Tseng,” she sighs, squeezing Tifa closer to her. “Zack witnessed the entire thing. It was a soap opera!”

Tifa grins. “You can’t tell me you didn’t enjoy the drama.”

“Ugh! You’re so right. I did. I admit it,” Aerith groans, but she gives a playful smile. “But I’ll never forget the look on Zack’s face. He was a wounded puppy. He looked so _hurt_. His heart is so big and full, and I could almost feel it shatter.” Her eyes flicker to the side, and Tifa follows her gaze. Zack is telling something to Cloud, but he looks up to catch them staring at him. He grins and waves. Aerith smiles back and sighs. “I waited. He didn’t come back to me. I knew I must have obliterated him, because it wasn't like him. He gave me so much space. But I waited, anyway. Then I had to seek him out, myself. So dense,” she says under her breath, and Tifa smiles.

“Yeah. Dense.”

“Love is stupid, isn’t it, Tifa?” she asks her, turning back to her. They sway together, the music still thrumming and wild and yet utterly subdued with their conversation.

Tifa feels her throat tighten. This has been happening every time she thinks about confessing the words aloud. When she’s around Cloud, it hides and jumps into the box of her heart, locking itself inside forever. It doesn’t want to leave her, doesn’t want to be noticed or seen or vulnerable. It _is_ stupid. Tifa knows she shines with it, regardless. With every look or glance or touch, it beams through her like a thousand sun rays. The terrain of her skin is different, too, rippled from the force of Cloud’s affection.

“Yes,” Tifa answers. “I can’t tell him.”

Aerith places a palm on her cheek. “You can. He loves you, too, don’t you see?”

Tifa takes a deep breath from the words. They are a sledgehammer to the lock on her heart.

“You’re dancing without me!”

Both Tifa and Aerith glance over to their side, with Yuffie bounding up to them. She wraps her arms around their shoulders, bowling into them. They all rock, almost falling over each other.

“Wow, I might even be _jealous._ Gross. But now it's fine, because I’m here.”

“Yuffie!” they scream, breaking apart from each other and grabbing at Yuffie’s limbs.

“ _Why_ did you not tell us about Vincent?” Tifa rounds on her.

Aerith gasps. “What? Vincent? Vincent Valentine, Vincent?”

Tifa points off to the side where Vincent remains standing. Aerith follows her finger, her mouth still open and gaping. Vincent catches them both staring at him, and he blinks at the blatant attention.

Yuffie rolls her eyes with a shit-eating grin. “He’s so hot, isn’t he?”

Aerith makes a loud, squealing noise. “I can’t believe you didn’t spill!” She grips Yuffie tighter. “How’d you manage to land _him?_ I’ve heard all kinds of things.”

Yuffie shakes her head, sighing loudly. “I didn’t land him. He’s one of those mythical _wed_ before _bed_ types. I didn’t even know that still existed?”

Aerith shakes her head, and Tifa snorts. “No, Yuffie, I didn’t mean to ask if you’d had sex! I just meant, how did you end up dating?”

Tifa places a hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter. Yuffie pokes her stomach. “Tifa, how much have you been drinking?”

“Not a lot!” Tifa objects. “I think champagne makes me snort more than usual.”

“Oh, I bet Cloud _loves_ when you snort,” Aerith titters.

“Shut up!” Tifa says, pushing at her lightly. “Yuffie, he’s the guy you were with at the New Midgar bar! The night I met Cloud.”

Aerith’s eyes widen. “You mean Yuffie’s been seeing him this _whole time?”_

They both hover over Yuffie, Aerith with her hand on her hips and Tifa with her arms crossed over her chest. Yuffie waves an arm with an unnecessary amount of theatrics.

“Okay, first off, _no,_ not since then! That’s only when I met him. But we have been talking since then. He is _so_ proper with his speech. I could listen to him talk all day.” Yuffie’s eyes glitter in a vortex of a smitten sea.

“Cloud told me he doesn’t talk a lot,” Tifa says.

“Honestly, I think I talk enough for the both of us,” Yuffie admits. “But when he does talk…” she trails, her face turning uncharacteristically dreamy. “He’s a scholar. And he can wield a gun like nobody’s business.”

Tifa turns to Aerith. “Yuffie doesn’t go for scholarly types.”

“What’s happened to her, do you think?” she stage whispers. “Do you think it’s because…”

“He can ‘wield a gun’?”

“Oh, sweet Leviathan! You guys!” Yuffie huffs, grabbing their arms. “Let’s go to a table. I need a drink.”

Tifa and Aerith grin at each other, being pulled closely behind.

* * *

Yuffie tells them all about her secret, burgeoning relationship with the mysterious, dark, tall, handsome, scholarly Vincent Valentine. Tifa and Aerith hum with delight and force Yuffie to extrapolate over him, and it’s made even more enjoyable with the champagne that continues to be delivered to their table.

“Does he open doors for you? He _must_ open doors for you,” Aerith says.

Yuffie grimaces. “I can open my own doors.”

“It’s the principle of it, Yuffie,” Tifa says. “Of course you can open your own doors, but does he effortlessly do these things when you don’t pay attention?”

Yuffie opens her mouth before she moans. “Ugh. Yes. He does.”

“Does he kiss your hand?”

“Does he send you flowers?” asks Aerith.

“Does he touch you for no other reason than to be close?”

“Does he sound regretful every time you say goodbye?”

Yuffie blinks at them, eyes darting back and forth between them. “You two are nuts, and I don’t know why I’m friends with you. But…yeah, he’s done all those things before.”

Tifa and Aerith give each other knowing looks.

“Not all the time,” Yuffie rebukes before they can say anything else. “If he did, it would make me gag and be such a turn off.”

“From what you’ve told us, he _does_ seem like the aloof, uncaring about your emotions, type,” Aerith says, sipping at her Cosmo through a straw.

“He’s not the best with emotions or physical touch,” Yuffie says. “I think it’s because of one of his past breakups. He hasn’t told me much about it, and it seems like a sore topic. But he’s good at listening and doing things. Sometimes, he’ll send me a letter instead of a phone message. Or he’ll send me something I mentioned in passing, like the newest brand of ninja stars or a headband. He’s a nerd.”

“That sounds really thoughtful, Yuffie,” Tifa smiles.

Yuffie shrugs. “He’s alright, I guess.”

And it seems, the more they talk and needle her about him, the more and more Yuffie tries to brush them off. Yuffie must like him very much if she acts this way, Tifa thinks. She’s wrapped up in him like a cape caught in a fan, twisting and tangled. Tifa sees it in the furtive glances Yuffie takes when she thinks they’re distracted with conversation. Tifa notices Vincent’s glances, too, his red eyes too conspicuous to lie about their intent.

Eventually, Zack and Cloud join their table. Yuffie tries to wave Vincent over, but he doesn’t budge. She sighs loudly.

“I’m going to try to drag him over here,” Yuffie states, standing up from the table. “I’ll be back!”

Tifa scoots closer to Cloud until she’s almost in his lap. Aerith lays her head on Zack’s shoulder.

“Yuffie really likes him,” Aerith says to the group, though she’s looking at Tifa.

Tifa nods, smiling. “She doesn’t like many.” She glances off to the side, watching Yuffie thread her fingers into Vincent’s. She pulls him down to say something in his ear, and while his lips don’t move, his eyes crinkle at their sides.

Zack laughs. “I can’t believe she got the COO to want to _date._ Honestly, the only things I’ve ever heard him say are the things we need to be better at doing.”

Cloud shakes his head. “His glares are loud enough without him having to say anything.”

“Yuffie’s a hell of a girl, then,” Zack grins. “Figures she’d be friends with us.”

Aerith squeezes his arm. “She’s one of a kind. Of course she’s friends with us.”

They sit together comfortably for a while, and Tifa glances around the extravagance of the room. Lights flicker and change on the dance floor, making it glitter and gleam like the night sky. The rest of the room rests in a haze of low lights, shadow, and the hint of dim oranges and reds, like the dusky hue of sunset. Each corner of the room holds a bar, with lounge chairs scattered around the walls. Some of the honey bees sit in the laps of executives in suits, while other employees stand and chat and slowly make their way into deeper intoxication, the braver souls dancing without a hint of care.

Her eyes come upon Rude, who is standing beside Reno. She remembers some of their conversations—Reno had always been Rude’s partner and closest work friend. They’re chatting amicably with one another, and Reno says something that has Rude smiling.

“Aerith, Tifa, this is Vincent,” Yuffie announces, and Tifa turns to look up to her side. Vincent’s eyes, upon closer inspection, are almost frightening in such proximity. His face is severe with angular lines, his mouth in an expressionless flatline, reminding Tifa of a dead heart. He surveys the table with one sweep of a glance. “Vince, you already know Zack and Cloud, so play nice, please?”

It’s then when Tifa sees it—the tiny twitch of his mouth. It’s the telltale beat of life. The first breath in once drowning lungs.

Zack nods in greeting. “Mr. Valentine. Good to see you, sir.”

“Mr. Valentine,” Cloud says.

“I have been told this is a night of merriment,” Vincent says, and Tifa knows immediately why Yuffie is so attracted to his voice. It is deep, and slow, and stately. “You may call me Vincent.”

Zack and Cloud share a look with each other. Zack hesitates.

“You’re sure you won’t decide to fire us if we do?”

Vincent glances at Yuffie before looking back at them. “I have been advised she will break up with me if I fire you.”

Aerith snickers into her hand, elbowing Zack. Tifa smiles at Vincent.

“Job security,” Aerith whispers to Zack.

“That is a very Yuffie-like bargain,” Tifa says.

“Appreciate the foresight on that, Yuffie,” Cloud says, smirking a bit.

“She is almost too cunning for me,” Vincent says, pulling out Yuffie’s seat for her to take before taking his own. Tifa meets Yuffie’s eyes and raises her eyebrows at the gesture. Yuffie answers the look with an annoyed one of her own.

“She’s too cunning for all of us,” Zack laughs. “I’m pretty sure she rigged the dart board at Seventh Heaven to make me lose all the time.”

“Honestly, you just suck at darts, Fair,” Yuffie states. “Also, that’s below my level of pettiness.”

“Zack, how dare you! Yuffie has standards!” Aerith scolds him teasingly.

“Forgive me, oh great one,” Zack says, placing a hand over his heart.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Vincent, Yuffie has told us so much about you. I feel as though we know you, already,” Tifa says, infusing her voice with as much sweetness as she can. Yuffie glares at her and mouths _no._

Aerith follows her lead. “You’re such a gentleman. Yuffie wouldn’t stop _gushing_ over you.”

“She’ll say she _hates_ you doing anything for her, but don’t believe it. She loves being treated like a princess.”

“Tifa…” Yuffie says warningly.

Aerith shrugs. “She’s basically royalty. She tells us all the time.”

“She’s mentioned you send her letters and, on occasion, flowers. That’s so romantic,” Tifa says. Aerith sighs happily.

“If you need any help with the flowers, I’m your girl,” Aerith winks.

“I…appreciate this,” Vincent says, with a questioning inflection, as though he’s uncertain if he should be saying anything at all. Tifa relishes the infuriated look growing on Yuffie’s face, her cheeks, for once, becoming flushed with rare embarrassment.

“Of course,” Tifa says, glancing at Yuffie and trying to hold back her laughter. “She’s even mentioned that you’re old-fashioned, too. Something about wedding before—“

Yuffie kicks Tifa’s shin. Tifa bites her tongue to silence her yelp, but she still chokes out a grunt and digs her nails into Cloud’s forearm to help with the pain.

“ _Yuffie!”_ Aerith exclaims, reaching over to place a consoling hand over Tifa’s fisted one on the table. Aerith begins giggling, and it evolves into laughter after looking at Yuffie’s expression. It’s a confused cross between murderous rage and suppressed amusement.

“Yuffie, that hurt so bad,” Tifa breathes, before the laughs gust out of her.

“Tifa, are you—“ starts Cloud.

“Oh, she’s _fine,_ ” Yuffie says, nonchalantly waving away Tifa’s pain. “You know, she’s like a martial artist or whatever. Sorry, my foot must have swung weird under the table. And I forgot, I’m wearing heels. I _never_ wear heels. My bad.”

“You’re the worst,” Tifa says. Yuffie’s lips curl into a smile, her eyes glinting.

“Touche, Teef. I’ve taught you well.”

Zack, Cloud, and Vincent all glance at each other in bemused silence while the girls continue snickering, their shoulders shaking with shameless humor.

* * *

They spend the better part of an hour together, sitting at the table. They talk about the different missions the boys have endured, specifically Zack and Cloud, and the growing pains of beginning their jobs. Cloud talks about how he had been woefully unprepared for his first deliveries, being cut up and limping and sore as all hell the next days, only to have another delivery to make. Zack describes outlandish things that Tifa’s unsure are wholly true, but his tales are entertaining, and most of the things Zack did to get out of the scrapes he placed himself in are goofy and klutzy—and Tifa imagines the scenario with him, Tseng, and Aerith much better after listening to his stories.

Vincent does not say much, but he seems content. In the midst of their conversation, he places his arm along the back of Yuffie’s chair. Yuffie begins to lean into his side.

Aerith tends to make remarks—mostly teasing remarks—during Zack’s monologues, and Zack takes them all in stride. He takes to calling her _honey_ because of their setting, and Aerith shoves her hand into his face.

Cloud either makes disproving noises or scoffs or laughs at Zack, and he turns to Tifa and whispers into her ear when he’s lying.

“He actually _dropped_ the materia. The thief didn’t have to steal it.”

“Hey!” Zack outcries. “He stole it, and we both know it.”

The music bumps and thrums like a conga line, pulsing its way through the parlor and weaving its way between the tables. It seems to grow and grow, and the space begins to feel like it’s even more crowded than it was when they first arrived. Tifa thinks if she wasn’t sitting, it would lift her up and pull her through the tables like the rushing of a river.

“Tifa?”

Tifa glances up from the table, blinking in heavy surprise. “Rude?”

He still wears his sunglasses, even in the darkness of the parlor. He wears the same suit he wears for work, his goatee as tailored along his jaw as it has always been. Nothing is ruffled or out of place, even though they are deep into the night.

She can feel Cloud’s hand tighten on her thigh, and she glances to him out of the corner of her eye. He’s frowning, and he looks at her when she shifts.

“May I have a dance?” he asks.

Tifa is floored at the question. She can just imagine what kind of look Yuffie is giving him. She’s not sure how Zack and Aerith are reacting, if they are, and Vincent is intimidating on his own without knowing him at all. Tifa is admittedly impressed that Rude’s nerve must have been sown of steel and granite to come talk to her, to ask her _to dance,_ when surrounded by her friends. Nerve or alcohol.

…Probably alcohol.

“Oh,” she hears herself say. “Um. Yeah. Sure.”

“Tifa—“ Cloud says softly. “You don’t have to.”

She looks at him, noting his uncertainty. He knows how much she hurt. He knows her trust in herself was fractured. What he fails to know now, however, is that none of it matters anymore.

“It’s okay,” she smiles, then she leans forward to kiss him in a public display of affection she doesn’t mind so much, tonight. Cloud’s grip on her tightens again, and she places her hand over his with a squeeze. As she stands from the table, Yuffie catches her eye. She gives Tifa a look of frustration and disapproval, but she’s unsure of how much it’s for Rude versus herself.

“Don’t have too much fun without me,” Tifa calls. She follows Rude to the floor, and they find a space for themselves. Rude opens his arms and Tifa takes her position, the memory of how they used to dance together like a dated, crumbling photograph. Rude leads her into the beats, and while they are heavy with bass and flickering lights, it is in three-quarters time, and they are somehow able to foot their way into a waltz.

“How are you?” Tifa asks. “I haven’t seen you in so long.”

“I’m well,” he says. “Busy with work, is all.”

“As always,” Tifa smiles.

“How are you?”

“Good. Busy working, like you.”

Rude nods. “Enjoying the evening?”

“It’s been a great time, so far.”

They are quiet for a minute or two. Tifa opens her mouth but doesn’t know what to say. Polite conversation seems moot after all this. She takes in the profile of his jaw and the bald shave, and she wonders about the passage of time. It feels like another life when they had danced this same dance together in restaurants. When he bought her chocolates and when they watched movies. When they kissed and enjoyed each other’s presence. When Tifa made him dinner. When they talked about the future. When he smiled at her and when she delighted in it.

It’s been six months since they’ve broken up. It’s been a longer time than they had been dating, and while it wouldn’t be deemed a long relationship to anyone else, Tifa considers it to be. It’s because of the details inside of their window of time. She got to know him well, and she got to know herself well, too.

She’s been dating Cloud for three months, now. They are two different species of relationships. There is nothing to compare. She can’t even compare out of spite, because she is too satisfied and contented to care. She’s so fully entrenched in Cloud, she almost feels like he’s a shawl across her back, even now, with her right hand in Rude’s and her left on his shoulder. This makes it easy to smile at him when he looks at her, when he takes her through a spin that details a history written in her older chapters.

“You were always so good at this dance,” Tifa remarks. “So classically bred.”

Rude smiles a little. “It’s always been my favorite.”

“Have you taken any other girls dancing?”

“…not yet.”

“You will. Take a break from work. You do too much of it.”

“So do you, Tifa.”

“I won’t disagree with you, there,” she says, laughing. “But life’s more than just working, Rude. It’ll always be there when you get back.”

Rude contemplates this for a while. “Yes…I suppose.”

The music speeds up a little, and they move quicker together.

“You're dating Cloud?” he asks.

Her eyes automatically rove to find him. When they do, she sees him staring at them. It’s probably a glare, and she attempts to give him a smile before they turn.

“I am.”

“He makes you happy?”

Happy is a simple word, she thinks. Simple and inadequate.

“He does.”

Rude hums a noise. “I am happy for you then, Tifa.”

She smiles at him. “And one day, you’ll find someone who makes you feel the way I do for him.”

He laughs, short and brief. “Perhaps. Time will tell.”

The DJ doesn’t allow the music to stop, one song fading and flowing into the next. As soon as the song they are dancing to transforms into a different beat, Cloud appears beside Rude.

“Can I cut in?”

Rude obeys, letting go of Tifa’s waist and hand. “Thank you for the dance, Tifa.”

Abruptly and suddenly, she wants to tell him the same thing. _Thank you for the dance, Rude. And thank you for breaking up with me. Thank you for shattering my heart and allowing me to mend it._ Because now, she has this new one, with old scars both white and dark and leathery, permanent callouses along the apex, rewired veins to overpass the ruptures. And beautiful hands to hold it.

“Of course, Rude. Take care of yourself.”

He gives her one last smile before he leaves them. Cloud takes no time at all in wrapping her up in him, placing both hands on her hips. Her hands land on his chest before she slides them up to his shoulders.

“You’re too nice of a person,” Cloud mumbles under his breath, leaning forward to nudge his nose against her jaw. He places a kiss on her neck.

“He’s not bad. We just weren’t right.”

“A blessing for me.”

She laughs. “Yuffie wasn’t too angry?”

“Oh, we were all livid. Don’t worry.”

“Even Vincent?”

“Especially Vincent.”

She smiles. “I think you have all forgotten I don’t care anymore.”

“Maybe you don’t, but we do.”

“So protective,” she says with affection.

“It was the longest five minutes of my life.”

“I’m sure he could feel your glare.”

“I thought about sending a zap of lightning at him.”

“I survived it, somehow.”

“Yeah, somehow. What did he want, anyway? A second chance?”

“No,” she sighs. “I think it was helpful closure for him. Rude is kind at heart. I know he did the breaking, but I think it hurt him just the same.”

“He should hurt, the asshole.”

She places her hands behind his neck and kisses him. They stop swaying. He pulls her in close to him until every line of their front presses together.

“Cloud? Thank you.”

“For what?”

She lifts up a shoulder in a shrug. “Everything.”

* * *

Andrea Rhodea makes his appearance around midnight. Every WRO member whoops and hollers when they see him take precedence on the upraised stage in the middle of the room. The spotlight shines down on him. The honey bee dancers take their formations. The music begins to blare, trumpets bursting through the speakers in pulsating shouts. The accompaniment of drumbeats and guitar riffs and techno beats blend together in an array of sound, decorating the air like paint splatters on the walls.

And Andrea dances. He spins and he jumps and he creates arching shapes with his body. He is a centerpiece and his bees are accessories, like earrings and shoes and necklaces, making him sparkle and shine.

Tifa can’t take her eyes off him. Neither can Yuffie or Aerith. Zack seems to be impressed, and Cloud has his arms crossed and attempts to look blasé.

“You’re good at that,” Tifa tells him during a riff in the song and dance.

“Good at what?”

“Pretending not to care.”

He scoffs at her, but a smirk creeps up on his lips.

“There’s no denying he’s good at what he does, but I’ve seen it before.”

Her eyes brighten. “Is this the routine he taught you?”

Cloud opens his mouth but hesitates. It is the best confirmation. “Parts of it.”

Tifa grins widely. Cloud gives her a skeptical look.

“Don’t get any ideas.”

“Too late.”

Andrea finishes in a spectacle of flashing lights and an explosion of colors. It is a dazzling feast for her eyes, and Tifa claps loudly. Yuffie whistles and Aerith shouts her glee.

Because of the audience being limited and specified in selection, Andrea makes his rounds to the top executives after his performance, walking around with a gracious strut to his hips and his arms. He’s made simple movement an art form.

“You might wanna close your mouth, Teef. Cloud’s gonna be jealous,” Yuffie says.

Tifa startles at the observation before she laughs. “I didn’t even know I was gawking!”

“We all are, don’t worry,” Zack says, placing an arm around Aerith’s shoulders. “Listen, if I wasn’t so deeply heterosexual and head over heels for my honey bee, I’d be hard pressed to have a crush on that guy.”

“Cloud would, too,” Aerith says, grinning. “If he wasn’t so _head over heels_.”

Cloud only makes a noncommittal noise. Aerith winks at Tifa. Tifa pointedly looks away from her.

Vincent, throughout the whole thing, seems to be unaffected. It’s only when Yuffie nudges him that Tifa realizes he had been staring, unblinkingly.

“Vincent might be with both of you,” Yuffie laughs.

“...no,” is all he says.

Tifa keeps tabs on Andrea’s trajectory through the parlor, though she doesn’t mean to be such a fan girl. She feels ridiculous, but being star struck is a powerful thing.

When he sees Cloud, he halts. “Ah! Cloud Strife! I am pleased to see a fellow dancer in our midst.”

Cloud’s cheeks flush immediately. “Uh, Andrea. You’re too…kind.”

“Nonsense!” he says, flourishing his arms. “One of the best amateurs I’ve seen in quite a while!”

Cloud looks like he wants to crawl into a hole and die.

“One of the _best?”_ Tifa says, her enjoyment of his discomfort growing. “Then I need to see it.”

Andrea looks to her, and he does a double take. “You—your figure! That tone! Those legs!”

Tifa’s enjoyment halts, and suddenly she begins to feel like Cloud looks. “Wait…what?” She glances down at herself. “I…um…”

“So athletic! You keep yourself in tip top shape, and that takes discipline and perseverance. That is something I truly admire.” Andrea walks up to her, and Tifa is floored by both his proximity and praise. His famous, electric aura is otherworldly, and suddenly Tifa has no words left to say.

He takes her hands in his own, and Tifa feels almost lightheaded. “Please, tell me you will dance with me.”

Tifa stares at him.

“She will,” Cloud answers for her.

Tifa is jolted into looking over at him. The words appear again. “Wait, no, I don’t think I—“

“Nonsense! Cloud understands the kindred spirit of another dancer when he sees one. Now, what is your name?”

“…Tifa.”

“Tifa. Ah. Lovely!” he says, his exuberance and enthusiasm bold and infectious. “Come, come, Tifa. Let us dance.”

Tifa is dragged behind him, and her eyes seek out Cloud. He’s watching her with his arms crossed, smirking at her as she goes.

“Cloud—!”

“You said later, and it’s later. Don't worry. You’ll be great.”

“Hell yeah!” Yuffie whoops. “You’re going to be so hot, Teef!”

Aerith claps with tremendous fervor. “It’s going to be amazing!” 

Even Zack shouts with a few hollers and a whistle, grinning widely.

Tifa feels an absurd fear settle over her like a sticky spider’s webbing. She feels desperately out of place and woefully unprepared.

“Um, Andrea, sir, I don’t think I can—“

“Oh, Tifa, just listen to the beat. Let it speak to you. Let yourself feel it.”

Tifa’s mind runs over all of her chakras and poses and stances. They aren’t dances, but they are somewhat graceful. Andrea claps, and two spotlights shine from above. He’s already standing in one, and he gestures for Tifa to take the other. Tifa fidgets, glancing back out into the crowd. Most people are too drunk to care what’s going on on the stage, anymore. It gives Tifa little solace, because her friends are watching, and they somehow are the only ones who mean anything.

“Tifa,” Andrea calls. He’s giving her an understanding look before walking up to her and taking her shoulders in his hands. “Don’t be afraid. True beauty is an expression of the heart. Think of what is beautiful to you. Think about who you are. Think about what makes you. Then, follow my lead.”

They are pretty words coming from an even prettier man. Tifa glances down at her dress again, and she wonders how much her makeup has faded. She glances at the spotlight and huffs out a breath. She’s done so many other reckless, potentially life-threatening things in her life and survived. This isn’t anything different.

As she takes her place in the spotlight, the emotions she felt from dancing with Rude pile onto her like a gush of rain. If beauty is an expression of her heart—and it must be, because she can feel it flooding through her, as rapid as her adrenaline—then she thinks she knows exactly what this dance is supposed to be.

“DJ! Play the next track!”

A swell of violins expand over the space like a blanket, a gentle piano accompaniment, and then the ricochet of a techno bass beat.

A woman’s deep, soulful voice trickles and weaves together with the music.

“You’re just too good to be true,” she sings. “Can’t take my eyes off of you.”

Tifa almost laughs. This song. It had to be this song. Can Andrea _read_ her heart as much as he can talk about it?

“Tifa!” he says. “Follow me!”

Tifa watches him first, then is grateful she still has a slight buzz running right alongside her adrenaline, because it’s easier to move and spin and step foot over foot, heel over heel. It’s simple at first, the steps and movements straightforward.

“You’d be like heaven to touch. I want to hold you so much.”

Andrea rolls his hips with a turn, and Tifa copies him, almost laughing at the exaggeration and then not caring as soon as they step into the next move.

“At long last, love has arrived, and I thank God I’m alive.”

Andrea turns toward her and grabs her hand. He leads her into a turn and a dip, then spins her back out.

“You’re just too good to be true. Can’t take my eyes off of you.”

Andrea struts, so Tifa struts. At Andrea’s smile, it emboldens her to send him an air kiss. He catches it and presses it against his chest. Tifa holds her face in her hands and swoons and sways. “Pardon the way that I stare. There’s nothing else to compare. The thought of you leaves me weak.”

Andrea slides up beside her, and they shimmy together. They twist and turn over each other, and their arms fall together, bending and turning.

“There are no words left to speak. But if you feel like I feel, then let me know that it’s real.”

Andrea puts his hands on her hips and they rock back and forth before she spins to dance face to face.

“You’re just too good to be true. Can’t take my eyes off of you.”

“I told you,” he says. “A natural.”

Tifa smiles, and her heart is a rocket, blasting off from her chest and flying off somewhere into the atmosphere.

The music jumps into a bouncy punch of strings, and Tifa follows Andrea, with her feet crossing over and her hands finding her hair—and it’s like she’s dancing with Yuffie again, those few months ago, when her heart was hurting and mending itself, and her body was moving without a care in the world.

“I love you, baby, and if it’s quite alright, I need you, baby, to warm my lonely nights.”

She opens her eyes, not realizing she had closed them. “I love you, baby. Trust in me when I say…”

Her eyes find Cloud’s like magnets, her dark red ones hitting his blue ones like a violet hurricane. He’s smiling at her, and she wonders for a moment what she looks like—and then she doesn’t care about that, either.

“I love you, baby. Don’t bring me down, I pray. I love you, baby. Now that I’ve found you, stay, and let me love you, baby. Let me love you.”

She spins and sways and turns, and Andrea takes her into several other steps Tifa doesn’t have names for, but it is fast and wild, and she is burning and melting and reforming. 

The song repeats, cycling through the first verse, with livelier beats that punch out a stronger rhythm. It is more certain of itself, filled with courage and bravery and fearlessness. When it hits the refrain, Tifa is shaking with euphoria, and she’s laughing, and Andrea takes her into one last marathon of spins before he dips her—

“Let me love you, baby. Let me love you.”

And it’s over. Andrea pulls Tifa back up to standing, and Tifa brings him into a sweaty, blistering hug full of leather and chiffon.

“An outstanding pupil, Tifa,” he tells her.

“An indescribable teacher,” she answers him, babbling all the thoughts in her head. “I can’t believe I met you. Or danced with you. I have a pair of your workout tights, and I’ll never look at them the same.”

Andrea only laughs at her. “Follow that beauty, and follow that heart, Tifa. I hope we can dance together, again.”

Tifa nods so vigorously, she thinks her head will pop off. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

Tifa doesn’t realize people are clapping for her until she floats down the steps of the stage to the parlor floor. Yuffie and Aerith pounce on her, and she isn’t ready for their sudden weight. They all almost topple over each other, taking several steps to the side before they catch their balance.

“Tifa!” Yuffie screams. “Who was that on stage!”

“You were so beautiful and amazing, I can hardly breathe!” Aerith squeals.

“You…guys. I don’t know. I don’t know! It was Andrea.”

“I’m your biggest fan,” Yuffie says.

Aerith laughs. “No, I am!”

“I have years on you, _honey_!”

Tifa’s stomach hurts from laughing, and as they untangle, Tifa realizes her hair is plastered to the side of her face, and sweat is slipping down her neck. She fingers her hair away in an attempt to make it more presentable.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m all sweaty.”

“Your sweat is liquid gold.”

Aerith snorts prettily, and they fall into a fit of giggles.

Running high on a thousand emotions, Tifa begins to feel her eyes well up. “I love you both. A lot.”

“And we love you,” Aerith says, her smile large and wide and gleaming. “Always.”

“Ugh. Love. I mean, duh, of course we do, Teef.”

Tifa smiles and blinks, turning her head upward to make the tears fall back into her eyes. As she does, she feels Cloud’s presence before she sees him. When she thinks she’s ready, she turns towards him. He’s still smiling that smile, and his eyes are still that _blue_ , and it's a violet hurricane, again, a riptide and a storm. Tifa tries not to let the tears come back.

“I told you you’d do great,” he says.

“I can’t believe that just happened.”

“I couldn’t either when it happened with me,” Cloud says. “It feels a bit…legendary. Did he tell you to follow your heart?”

“Yes,” she says, still a bit breathless from the dancing and laughing. “Yes, he did. And he told me he hoped we would dance again.”

“We could be a trio, next time,” Cloud says. “I think we could make it work.”

“I don’t know. That might be more surreal than this one was.”

“You’re probably right,” he says, still smiling. “You _were_ really great, Tifa.”

 _Don’t cry,_ she thinks desperately. _Don’t do it._

“I had a lot to dance for. I think that was it.”

Cloud steps closer to her, reaching up to push her bangs off her forehead.

“What did you dance for?”

Tifa reaches up to her hair and lifts the curtain of it off the back of her neck. _Of course,_ he’d ask her. A honey bee is carrying a tray of champagne past them, and she filches one. It is cold and welcoming down her heated throat.

“Tifa, are you okay?” he asks her, a puzzled look coming over his face.

“I’m fine, just overheating,” she says, finishing the champagne. It doesn’t help her like she wants it to. What happened to the courage and the bravery and the fearlessness? She wonders. It was so prominent and ceaseless on the stage, in the blaze of the dance. Now, it’s all burned up, and the rocket of her heart landed back in its locked cage. She feels a brief building of panic.

“Let’s go outside,” Cloud says, gesturing. “It’s a bit cooler there than in here. It might help.”

“Good idea,” Tifa says, and Cloud places his hand on the small of her back to guide her. Her limbs continue to feel loose and foggy from the dance, and her pulse feels like a bug stuck in a jar, her blood pushing against her arteries with careless force.

Tifa sighs when the outside air hits her. It is almost chilly against the sweat along her neck and back, and it is more than welcoming. It helps the fog deteriorate, and it awakens her senses. The euphoria remains along with the avalanche of leftover adrenaline, and it is a better cocktail than she could ever create on her own.

“Thanks. This is much better.”

“I’m glad,” he says, and he stands behind her. He wraps his hands along her waist, and she settles back against him. The stairs twinkle above them, swimming around the large, gleaming eye of the moon. It is a clear night, the clouds that linger wispy and threadlike and draping over the night sky like see-through lingerie.

Tifa smiles at the thought. She still hasn’t worn it for him. Funnily enough, he hasn’t asked. All she’s needed is one of his shirts to wear to bed.

Tifa closes her eyes and takes a deep fortifying breath. “Cloud?” she says.

“Yeah?”

She thinks about Aerith’s words. _He loves you, too, don’t you see?_

She thinks about the way his hands feel, holding the ledges of her hips. She thinks about the time before she met him, and she thinks about their confessions in a hotel room, and she thinks about now, _right now_ , and how this moment will never be the same in a second or a minute or an hour. Each moment has never been the same since she met him. He holds her heart, here, and what can a heart be if he can’t look inside of it, or open it, or learn the way it works? It would be a useless thing, then, a trinket. Something to admire and then put away.

The cage of it rattles, and the lock is melting with all her overheating. She’s still sweating. She’s still breathless. She’s going to burst.

“Tifa?” he asks.

One tear falls, then another.

She’s bursting.

“I love you,” she says.

The words hang in the air, ripped from her like a plug. It all comes rushing out of her. It is the adrenaline again, the euphoria, the exquisite ecstasy.

Cloud’s hands tighten on her before he turns her to face him.

She isn’t sure what to expect when she looks up into his eyes. He might be smiling, but all she sees is the deep, dark blue that must be the color of several thousand leagues below the sea, because she is drowning, drowning, and the pressure on her throat makes it hard to breathe.

He grabs her face and kisses her. He breathes the air back into her. She subsists on this kiss he’s giving her. It is scalding and rough and gentle and sweet and it is dense and decadent like a five-layer slice of chocolate cake.

“I think I’ve loved you the first time I saw you in Seventh Heaven. I just didn’t know it,” he says. “I could have talked to you, then. I could have known you.”

She shakes her head against him, her teeth catching on his lips. “No. We met when we needed to. No could haves. No what ifs.”

He sighs into her, his arms like bands around her torso. It doesn’t feel as though he’ll ever let her go. “Don’t cry, Tifa. I love you.”

“I don’t mean to. I’m just—I’m—“ she inhales sharply against the closure of her throat. She can’t speak, so she kisses him again. He seems to understand her without an explanation, their mouths conveying everything against each other in a mad and silent tangle, another dance.

After a while, Tifa’s tears dry, and they break apart to breathe.

“Did you…want to go to a guest room?” Tifa asks him quietly.

Cloud smiles, but he shakes his head. “Not here. Not after this.”

Tifa nods slowly. “Okay. Are we…”

“There’s a guest room at the Seventh Heaven. I’d rather be home, wouldn’t you?”

Her heart pounds eagerly at the word. Home. It is intimate and meaningful, and a word that they share, connecting them like their tether.

“I would,” she says.

They go inside and tell the others they are calling a ride and leaving.

Zack grins cheekily. “Guess that means I get to bring Aerith home, tonight.”

Aerith colors and smacks him on the shoulder but doesn’t protest, only laughs. “If that is what must be,” she announces dramatically.

“And I’ll go home with Vince!” Yuffie volunteers.

Vincent finally seems to start at this. “Yuffie…”

“Oh, don’t worry, Vince. I’m not going to jump you!…unless, of course, you want me to.” She winks. Vincent has enough drink in him to be flustered.

When Tifa and Cloud arrive to Seventh Heaven, they shower and they lay together, and they stare at each other like tomorrow doesn’t exist. Because love may be stupid. It may be cowardly and weak and fearful, and it might hide and make foolish decisions. It might hurt. It might poke and prod and be the most uncomfortable thing in existence.

But when the sun rises in the morning, their love remains wrapped around them, steeping in their skin with each passing moment. It is becoming bolder and deeper and stronger. As Tifa watches him, a smile softens her face, because even if love is all those things, it is also an expression. It is beauty. It is wonderful. With Cloud, it will be new and different, a journey with a million uncharted roads—and Tifa looks forward to following where they lead. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song used was Gloria Gaynor's Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You. There are so many of them, and they're all great, but that one was so dance-y and fun. 
> 
> Thanks again for reading!


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